Posted by Nurudeen Obalola on
Nigerians are united in their prayers for the nation's Under-20 team, Flying Eagles, to win the 15th edition of the FIFA World Youth Championship that ends in Holland tonight.
Nigerians are united in their prayers for the nation's Under-20 team, Flying Eagles, to win the 15th edition of the FIFA World Youth Championship that ends in Holland tonight.
President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Federal Executive Council first made the call for prayers after Wednesday's FEC meeting in Abuja.
Addressing newsmen after the meeting, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu, urged Nigerians to be with the team in spirit for them to realise the national quest of lifting the WYC trophy in the final match against Argentina.
A former board member of the Nigeria Football Association, Chief Femi Olukanmi, joined Chikelu: 'I think all Nigerians should be proud of what the Flying Eagles have achieved and we all wish them well in the final. The boys have played with determination and they have shown that they are hungry for success. Nobody gave them a chance before the tournament but they have exceeded all our expectations and they deserve our total support.
'The players and coaches have done their bit and those of us at home should pray for luck to be on their side on Saturday so that they will bring the trophy and become the first African team to do so. Luck plays a big part in football; even with all the hard work and talent, one still needs a bit of luck to succeed. However, if at the end of the match the Flying Eagles do not win, Nigerians should still be proud of them because they have done extremely well."
Former Super Eagles coach, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, said, 'Remember that first of all I'm a Nigerian and like all my compatriots, I'm expecting the Cup to come home to us. But apart from being patriotic, I'm sure if the Flying Eagles continue the way they have been playing, they will beat Argentina on Saturday.
'I wrote in my report after the African Youth Championship that the team improved steadily with every match and they have continued to improve in Holland. They would have beaten Brazil if they had not been over cautious and after some tactical miscalculations against Korea, Samson Siasia has now got it right and I expect them to beat Argentina. Fitness has been the Flying Eagles' major weapon as it has made them mobile and strong and they should be able to defeat Argentina.
'Argentina have always been a good side but remember we defeated them in Atlanta in 1996 and they had a very tough time before defeating my Eagles team 1-0 at Korea/Japan in 2002. I have absolutely nothing to fear if the Flying Eagles play their normal game. The only team I'll fear now is a team with 12 players; if Argentina field 11 players then there will be no problem."
After three weeks of intense competition among the finest U-20 footballing talent on the face of the earth, the FIFA WYC comes to a close tonight in Utrecht when Nigeria and Argentina battle for the right to be called world youth champions.
Tonight's final- scheduled to kick off at 7p.m Nigerian time- is Nigeria's second in six attempts, while it is Argentina's sixth final appearance. The South Americans have been champions on four occasions and their last triumph was in 2001 when they defeated another African side, Ghana, in the final in Buenos Aires.
Argentina's game is built around the gifted Lionel Messi, who is on the books of Spanish champions, Barcelona. Messi has already been compared with Argentina legend, Diego Maradona, and he has scored four goals in this championship. The dimunitive left-footed star has been the driving force behind Argentina's impressive run to the final in Holland and he was the star of the show in the hard-fought semi-final victory over Brazil, scoring his side's first goal and giving their fierce South American rivals serious problems in the 2-1 win.
Along with Pablo Zabaleta, who has scored three goals in Holland, Messi forms a formidable partnership and the team rely on their goals for glory.
In stark contrast, the Flying Eagles' goals have come from all over the park, with defender, Taye Taiwo, tying with striker, Chinedu Ogbuke, as the team's top scorer with two goals each. David Abwo, Mikel Obi, widely adjudged as the Eagles' standout player at The Netherlands 2005, Promise Isaac, John Owoeri and right-back Adebayo Olufemi have all contributed one goal each to their team's progress.
While goals have come in from all angles for the Eagles, the rearguard has been the mainstay of Samson Siasia's team as they have conceded only three goals in six matches and scored nine. Argentina's statistics are almost similar, the South Americans scoring 10 goals and conceding four.
The key point therefore will be which defence comes out on top and which of the teams hold their nerves when things are not going their way.
Nigeria's defence learnt a great deal from their first round loss to Korea and they have the Asians to thank for their amazing success in Holland. That Nigeria are in the final has been described as a ‘miracle' by their coach, but the journey has been rough and tough.
The Koreans must be watching with a mixture of pride and envy tonight as the Flying Eagles battle Argentina for the World Youth Championship title. Envy because the Asians will feel they could have also gone this far since they got the better of Nigeria in the first round and because they can beat their chest and tell the world that they beat the finalists once.
Ironically, Korea, the 2-1 winners of that match which the Flying Eagles so carelessly threw away, and Nigeria have taken different paths since letting in two careless late goals on June 15. While the Koreans are back home with their feet up watching the championship on television, the Nigerians are still very much involved and are in line to claim the big prize on offer.
Whatever happens tonight, the Flying Eagles should send a bottle of vintage wine to the Koreans for the wake-up call, which jolted them from their self-congratulating slumber.
After a sterile opening match in which Nigeria and Brazil basically cancelled each other out, the Flying Eagles felt they had arrived before Korea applied the shock treatment.
Korea's needle must have touched a nerve in the Flying Eagles and they came flying out of the blocks against Switzerland in their third match.
Knowing they had to win the match against the highly rated Europeans, the Flying Eagles rolled up their sleeves and played the games of their young lives, winning 3-0 to book a quarter-finals ticket. Anything other than a clear victory would have meant an embarrassing early exit for the African champions but coach Samson Siasia touched up his team here and there and the changes worked like magic.
Solomon Okoronkwo, who ran himself to the ground against the Brazilians for scant reward in the first game and was listless in the second, gave way for the lively Chinedu Ogbuke, while John Owoeri got a start in what was a daring, to-hell-with-caution formation.
Switzerland, parading Arsenal's Philippe Senderos- who is also a regular in the senior national team- at the back and the swift Johan Vonlanthen, who became the youngest ever scorer in European Championship history when he scored at Euro 2004, were caught by the force of the Eagles' indignation and there was no stopping the swooping Nigerians.
The Eagles defence held firm, even as Taiye Taiwo pushed forward; Mikel Obi grew more into his role as the team's fulcrum, and the attacking trio of Promise Isaac, Ogbuke and darting David Abwo played with zest and fire. Faced with such opposition, the Swiss stood no chance and they admitted to Nigeria's overwhelming supremacy after one of the most one-sided games of the championship.
The Eagles took it up from there, and nobody, not even the hosts, has been able to clip their soaring wings.
Siasia's team are adroit at neutralizing their most dangerous opponents and rendered Ukraine's best players largely ineffectual in their round of 16 game. Oleksandr Aliiev, who had scored five goals, and Artem Milevski were billed as the twin threats in the Ukraine team, but they were rendered impotent by the Flying Eagles and after 90 minutes, during which the Eastern Europeans saw little of the ball and rarely gave impressive Ambrose Vanzekin in Nigeria's goal any trouble, Taiwo's cross-cum-shot was enough to take the Eagles to the quarter-finals.
There was now renewed belief in the Nigerian camp, although they were scheduled to meet the hosts in the quarter-finals. With the baying, bawling crowd fully behind them Holland were a daunting prospect but the Eagles were not intimidated.
Not even the presence of another Arsenal player, Ghana-born Quincy Owusu-Abeye, and Ajax's Ryan Babel was enough to scare the intrepid Nigerians, and it was the Flying Eagles who went ahead with the fastest goal of the tournament through Owoeri in the first minute. The hosts fought back gamely to level the scores with an early goal in the second half but the Eagles were bent on flying to the final.
With nerves of steel, the Nigerians broke thousands of Dutch hearts at the stadium after winning a tense, melodramatic penalty shootout in which there was no hiding place for any of the 22 players left on the pitch at the end of the nail-biting encounter.
Although the Nigerian team needed huge chunks of luck to win the penalty lottery, their hard work, undiluted commitment and the coaches' savvy were enough to take them through to their country's third semi-final in six World Youth Championship outings.
Siasia won bronze at USSR '85 as a player but he has gone a step beyond that achievement now as a coach after his team swatted aside Morocco's wild challenge to qualify for tonight's eagerly anticipated final.
The North Africans employed all the tricks in the book and then some to throw Nigeria off balance in the semi-final in Kerkrade last Tuesday but the resolute Eagles were too strong for them and in the end, despite the support of foul-tempered, missile-throwing Moroccans in the terraces, the Lions were devoured by the hungry Eagles.
It was supposed to be a repeat of the African Youth Championship semi-final in Benin Republic in January when Morocco went ahead twice before the Nigerians equalised to set up a penalty shootout. But the WYC is a different ball game and the Nigerians swept to a 3-0 victory and they now lie in wait for Argentina in what should be an epic final.
Like Nigeria, Argentina also needed a loss to jolt them into life and they have also been unstoppable since the defeat to the US in their first game.
The South Americans, who beat Ghana in the final in 2001, shook off the shock loss to beat Egypt and overcome Germany in their other group games before scraping past Colombia 2-1 in the round of 16.
In the quarter-finals, Argentina saw off favourites and 1999 champions, Spain, 3-1 before Tuesday's 2-1 victory over their biggest rivals, Brazil, in the semi-finals.
The Eagles were not given much of a chance to get this far after their slipshod preparations, but the indomitable Nigerian spirit, which is tragically lacking in their egotistic senior colleagues, has seen them to this stage and they can go all the way.
They have tackled with intensity, run with energy and celebrated with gusto since their first game three weeks ago. They have gone through six gruelling matches and survived with only a few bruises and one or two suspensions as scars and they have one final throw of the dice to go one better than the Saudi ‘89 team and bring glory to their fatherland.
Siasia's ex-teammate, Godwin Eke, who was in the 1985 Flying Eagles team that won bronze in the former USSR, revealed to our correspondent what he told his former colleague.
'I met Samson in Abuja in January and told him to go to Holland and beat our achievement of 1985. I told him to go beyond the semi-final and bring the cup to Nigeria. Although he complained about the level of support he was getting from the authorities, I told him he could do it.
'I also told him to go on and make a case for our generation because the old ones do not appear ready to leave the place for us. If he could get a great result in Holland, maybe Nigeria would follow the trend in world football where coaches in their thirties and early forties are now in charge of big teams. I told him he could emulate the likes of Jurgen Klinsmann, Frank Rijkaard, Hristo Stoichkov and Jose Mourinho and I'm happy he's made our generation very proud," Eke, who is now the Chief Coach at the Imo State Sports Council and one of the coaches leading the MTN Academicals to Denmark next month, said.
Saturday Punch, July 02, 2005