“And on the Sport Scene,’’ the newscaster’s rich feminine voice billowed through the bus radio into Dauda’s tingly ears. “Nigerian National League surprise package, Yenegoa United have defeated Ibadan giants, Oluyole Rangers 2 nil on home soil to seal their promotion to the Nigerian Professional Football League and go level on points with log leaders, Berger FC. This takes the battle for the NNL championship title to the final day of the season.’’

Dauda let his heart bathe in the joy of his players’ cheers. It felt as though they all needed to hear about their just-concluded feat in the news to be sure they weren’t dreaming. It all felt like a dream. A dream too good to be true. But by some stroke of a miracle, it was true.

Pundits had predicted that they didn’t even have the quality to finish in the top half of the table. But here they were, promoted to the Nigeria Professional Football League and in with a shout for the NNL title. It was a truly surreal moment. Their surreal moment. And they weren’t going to let anyone live in it for them.

Even Effiong, the team’s chauffeur, who seemed to have been cursed with an immovable stone-face, complemented the players’ cheers with slight rhythmic honk sounds as he drove the team’s bus along MKO Abiola Way. The newscaster was still speaking, but no one cared. There was just one bit of news that mattered in that moment. And they already heard it.

Several congratulatory text messages had been flooding in for the past half-hour, but the one that just popped unto Dauda’s smartphone screen was particularly heartwarming. It was nothing special, actually. It simply read “Congratulations, Bros D. You deserve this!’’. But it was special. It was from Sadiq; the one man who was there for him when his wife took their child and absconded without warning; the one man who was there for him in his recently won battle against alcohol addiction; the man who enrolled him in his first professional coaching course.

He would reply, but just not yet. He was still busy soaking in the joy of his latest victory.

He remembered how the media had turned on him mercilessly, how he had wondered what devil possessed him to pursue a career as a football coach after the the crushing 6–0 defeat his team suffered on the opening day of the season. It was all the more satisfying to think they had just defeated the same opponent.

“And this is where we wrap up the Mid-day News on Splash 105.5 FM. Thanks for joining us. I am Ronke Giwa Onafuwa. Don’t touch that dial!”

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