₦airaland Forum

It is the triumph of youth for me. Our 4x100m women's Champion team had 2 highschoolers and one of them ran the anchor leg (Miracle Ezechukwu). Chigozie ran the 1st leg.

Miracle Ezechukwu is still in SS3. A Junior African Champ.

Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo is in SS2 and also a Junior Champ. Been following both girls thru MOC and I am pleased they stepped up big despite their youth.

Rosemary Chukwuma gets a special mention for her 3rd leg run. Her bend running remains the fastest in Africa and one of the world's best and she gave us that Gold. She is still living up to the name I tagged her 4 yrs ago during the 2022 Commonwealth games in Birmingham: Rosemary, the space bender.
Same year they ran a faster time in Eugene at the World Athletics finishing 4th.

Kudos to the ladies.

opes:
I was so impressed with the girls..


Leg 1. Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo, 16yrs
Leg 2. Obi Jennifer Chukwuma, 21yrs
Leg 3. Rosemary Chukwuma, 24yrs
Anchor. Miracle Ezechukwu, 17yrs

CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD!!!

The Nigerian 🇳🇬 quartet of Chigozie Rosemary, Jennifer Chukwuka Obi, Rosemary Chukwuma, and Miracle Ezechukwu became the first team to go sub-43 in the history of the women's 4x100m at the African Athletics Championships. They ran a tied SB of 42.94s to… pic.twitter.com/c1B1Ky7a5J

— Making of Champions (@MakingOfChamps) May 15, 2026

Chuks4041:
Omo this CIV squad is very squad

Its not. Their defense and midfield is suspect.

opes:
I was so impressed with the girls..


Leg 1. Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo, 16yrs
Leg 2. Obi Jennifer Chukwuma, 21yrs
Leg 3. Rosemary Chukwuma, 24yrs
Anchor. Miracle Ezechukwu, 17yrs

CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD!!!

The Nigerian 🇳🇬 quartet of Chigozie Rosemary, Jennifer Chukwuka Obi, Rosemary Chukwuma, and Miracle Ezechukwu became the first team to go sub-43 in the history of the women's 4x100m at the African Athletics Championships. They ran a tied SB of 42.94s to… pic.twitter.com/c1B1Ky7a5J

— Making of Champions (@MakingOfChamps) May 15, 2026

Rosemary Chukwu showed her experience,great run,
And silenced the "nice one Ghana" man

Wow that's commendable!
I hope the federation can keep her

opes:
Yes, without Tobi, Ofili and Tima Godbless, they did very well.
Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo that started the race is still in secondary school, SS2

oloriooko:
In Nigeria athletics, the girls are our power-house, even without Tobi, the girls won the 4x100m finals

Nigeria sports in general,our girls na our powerhouse.

The dust of Morocco adding Ayoub Bouaddi has not settled yet and attacker, Mohamed Ali Cho of OGC Nice is said to have switched to Morocco too ahead of the World Cup.

Coach Ouahbi and the Moroccan FA are setting things in order and fast just before their Final Squad announcement date (still undisclosed).

Modified: Morocco Final WC Squad would be announced come May 26.

opes:
Yes, without Tobi, Ofili and Tima Godbless, they did very well.
Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo that started the race is still in secondary school, SS2

The third leg gave us the gold. She just created that lead if not that Liberian last girl speed no be here.

TheSuperNerd:
The first U20 List of the Maikaba tenure is here... according to @MikeThePundit

🚨BREAKING: Maikaba invites 35 players to camp as Flying Eagles begin preparations for WAFU B tourney

In the list are three goalkeepers, 10 defenders, 11 midfielders and 11 forwards.
 
All invited players are expected to report to camp in Abuja on Saturday, 16th May.

Simon Cletus is on the list.

Tomorrow we will be wondering why we no longer qualify for world cup. See names nah

opes:
Yes, without Tobi, Ofili and Tima Godbless, they did very well.
Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo that started the race is still in secondary school, SS2

Massive 🔥🔥🔥🔥

comodo:
The third leg gave us the gold. She just created that lead if not that Liberian last girl speed no be here.

You sabi book

oloriooko:
In Nigeria athletics, the girls are our power-house, even without Tobi, the girls won the 4x100m finals

Any sports.

Our girls are built differently when it comes to sports in Africa.

Football
Athletics
Basketball
Weightlifting
Boxing
Handball

How's Morocco been able to convince dual player's to play for them. The new guy recruited is very young and good, he even has the chance to play for France in the neaest future, but he decided to opt for Morocco.
There's a rumor, That Zidane try to convince him to play fo France, but he refuse.
What's is Nigeria getting wrong. We can't even convince low profile player's like Lesley oguchukwu.
Very soon we can be competing with africa team like morroco, Senegal, ivory coast, because of the quality players they have.
For the pas 3months, morroco have been able to convince ten dual player's to play for them.
These player's are not low profile player's.

TheSuperNerd:
Eswatini will never be on the level of even Zambia no matter how many foreign-born talents they bring in.

DRC is recruiting good but we still saw how Algeria stopped them at the Afcon. Same Algeria we outplayed for 90mins. DRC has always been a force since the 70s... their resurgence is good for African football but they are still not complete. Their game vs Jamaica showed some of the depth of their deficiencies.

Senegal, CIV, Morocco all recruiting in droves and it is no news coz it is what they have been doing. Now how many are really quality? How many will they play? Dont get me wrong, Senegal, CIV and Morocco are legitly strong sides in African football but none of their foreign born-talents have won the APOTY except Madrid-born Achraf Hakimi of Morocco.

Look at Nigeria, we may not have the Volume of Foreign-born talents recruitment compared to the countries mentioned above (especially as most of our dual nationals prefer England or france or Germany or Denmark or any other euro state) but when we do succeed in recruiting, we are lucky enough to land truly talented lads.

Victor Moses was a fantastic recruitment who eventually won an Afcon.

Ademola Lookman came in 2022 and won the APOTY for 2024. That is a gap of just 2yrs+.

Calvin Bassey came in and arguably is Africa's best and strongest CB today. The last Afcon showed this.

Ola Aina has established himself as one of Africa's best RBs behind Hakimi.

Bright Osayi Samuel showed up huge at the last Afcon at RB in Aina's absence.

Emmanuel Fernandez of Rangers got recruited and just recently debuted and boy! What a talent he is at the back... a lad who will inevitably go on to greater things in the GWG and in his club career.


These are just some of the strong examples showing the quality of our dual-nationals/foreign-born talents recruitments despite the multitudes of NO or disinterest we have encountered from the likes of Olise, Eze, Saka, Musiala, Tammy, Tomori and co. And guess what? We are still pushing recruitment efforts and structurally this time through a diaspora monitoring committe

And I know you will mention World Cup but mind you....
....the major reason we are not at the World Cup was due to administrative indecisions/flop decisions moving us from Jpes to Finidi to Eguavoen before we found Chelle.

The NFF General Secretary admitted it already that "...if Chelle had began the WCQs, we would easily be in USCAMEX 2026..." So lesson learnt.

@123jamessmith,

Can you kindly read this quote.

Napoleon55:
Others are snatching which top talents and we are not?

When we do recruit our own foreign born, they win African footballer of the year, or AFCON MVP,do you see the difference.

Bassey is arguably Africa's best defender,Lookman is Africa's best wing forward,Iwobi,one of the best midfielders in Africa, they are all foreign recruit.

@123jamessmith

Can you kindly read this post

123jamessmith:
How's Morocco been able to convince dual player's to play for them. The new guy recruited is very young and good, he even has the chance to play for France in the neaest future, but he decided to opt for Morocco.
There's a rumor, That Zidane try to convince him to play fo France, but he refuse.
What's is Nigeria getting wrong. We can't even convince low profile player's like Lesley oguchukwu.
Very soon we can be competing with africa team like morroco, Senegal, ivory coast, because of the quality players they have.
For the pas 3months, morroco have been able to convince ten dual player's to play for them.
These player's are not low profile player's.

Here we go again.

I brought up two posts for you,above you,
Read them and do to it however you wish,those are the facts.

Moreover, Ademola Lookman won U20 world Cup with England as one of the best players of the tournament,does he sound like a low profile talent.
How was we able to convince him to leave England and play for us,does that mean anything to you

ChrisKels:
Tomorrow we will be wondering why we no longer qualify for world cup. See names nah

When I went through the list,I just lost interest and shift my interest to U17.

TheSuperNerd:
The first U20 List of the Maikaba tenure is here... according to @MikeThePundit

🚨BREAKING: Maikaba invites 35 players to camp as Flying Eagles begin preparations for WAFU B tourney

In the list are three goalkeepers, 10 defenders, 11 midfielders and 11 forwards.
 
All invited players are expected to report to camp in Abuja on Saturday, 16th May.

Simon Cletus is on the list.

Is this the best Maikaba can offer us? Na waya ooo. I tire

Relax. If any of us here have followed the U20s for years, then we should know this is a launch list. The final squad for the Wafu B U20s wont come solely from this list. There will be substractions and additions.

This is just to open camping and begin screening, training and selections.

solonnachi:
Is this the best Maikaba can offer us? Na waya ooo. I tire

🚨The Draw for AFCON 2027 Qualifiers will be conducted on Tuesday, 19 May at 12PM.

It will be held at Egyptian Football Association Headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

The opening match of the AFCON will be played on Saturday, 19 June 2027, and the Final on Saturday, 17 July 2027.

Source: @MikeThePundit

Not everyone on that list will make it past the 3rd week of camping. Expect a lot of cuts and new names (hopefully upgrades) to come in before the final squad announcement for the Wafu B.

ChrisKels:
Tomorrow we will be wondering why we no longer qualify for world cup. See names nah

So no team (club or NT) has snapped up this guy? Till now?

For penalty's sake, Eric Chelle must include Iheanacho in the Unity Cup squad list.

Celtic vs Hearts showdown in about an hour and 8mins...

Will Kelechi Iheanacho win the Scottish Premiership Title? Or would Hearts make history? We would see.

Bright Godwin, 24 (LB) playing his last game of the 2025/26 Liga Portugal 2 season for Vizela (4th) away at Torreense (3rd - Promo playoff spot).

His 27th league game of the season.

Napoleon55:
When I went through the list,I just lost interest and shift my interest to U17.

To me sir, unlike you, it seems you are looking at the list from a tribalistic lens. My guess is that because of the many Northern origin names on the list, you have already written them off. Truth is, most of us don't know many U21 players to recommend, and you have never seen these guys play to form a conclusion whether or not they are good.

TheSuperNerd:
Celtic vs Hearts showdown in about an hour and 8mins...

Will Kelechi Iheanacho win the Scottish Premiership Title? Or would Hearts make history? We would see.

Seniorman no dey look Uche face o, he is a cold blooded Hearts-breaker!!!!!

La Liga 2025/26 season's 8th to 19th positions is separated by just 6pts with 2 games to go. No team within these positions is safe just yet.

'Kinda giving NPFL vibes.

ChrisKels:
Tomorrow we will be wondering why we no longer qualify for world cup. See names nah

This clearly shows you don’t follow our youth football at all

AndSunGorilla:
To me sir, unlike you, it seems you are looking at the list from a tribalistic lens. My guess is that because of the many Northern origin names on the list, you have already written them off. Truth is, most of us don't know many U21 players to recommend, and you have never seen these guys play to form a conclusion whether or not they are good.

How many Northerners have come thru the youth ranks into the highest level for Nigeria? Most of our best talents in all sports have come from the south. This is like France selecting mostly white players from Monaco to play for them. Logic sef how many Northerners play for the Super Falcons who are 10x champions? Selecting players Different players from different regions have always given us the edge in football because players from different regions have unique attributes that other countries simply dont have but we are misusing it now with this useless NFF who appoint coaches based on tribal sentiments.

typicalgamer:
This clearly shows you don’t follow our youth football at all

When last did Nigeria produce an U something team thT made us proud? Ever since the NFF started appointing coaches from the North based on tribalistic sentiments our youth football has collapsed. For the past 10 years we have had rubbish coaches like Zubairu, Makaiba and Bosso coach our U20s with nothing to show for it.

Emmanuel Fernandez in Action for Rangers away at Falkirk in the Scottish Premiership (SPFL).

Rangers up 2-1 after just 9mins played

"Nothing" is a strongly extreme word to use.

Not exonerating the NFF's history of incompetence but Bosso's last U20s gave us Benjamin Frederick who needs no intro.

Zubairu's U20s gave us Sani Suleiman who is now at RB Leipzig.

So I would not say "Nothing" but in all, we could do better with the current list but let us wait and see because I am certain the 35man list put out is a camp launcher. The only worry for me is if the players they add as the weeks go by, after cutting those not deemed quality enough from the 35, would be actual upgrades. Time will tell.

Predator87:
When last did Nigeria produce an U something team thT made us proud? Ever since the NFF started appointing coaches from the North based on tribalistic sentiments our youth football has collapsed. For the past 10 years we have had rubbish coaches like Zubairu, Makaiba and Bosso coach our U20s with nothing to show for it.