₦airaland Forum

Icon79:
The most competitive league in the world? Yea right!

Trust me, if you can transfer any one of he EPL powerhouses: ManCity, ManU, Chelsea, or Liverpool to La Liga, they would all be competing for the 4th position or lower in La Liga. The EPL is just marketing but if you want to watch great football La Liga is the best league in the world.


O pari

wayodude:
Very well said! I have thought along the same line since we got knocked out and the masses started throwing stones at Rohr. I remember the same happened with Lagerback. People forget that we were beating Greece and so seriously dominating them that we could have run riot in that game and then Oga Sani Kaita struck! We went down to 10 men the Greek manager immediately brought on another striker and we lost a game that seemed to be heading towards a routine win.

The next game against Korea which we needed to win to go through Oga Yakubu missed empty net from 3 yards and we end up drawing and getting knocked out. After all that Lagerback was called Lagerbeer and poured with every insult imaginable. shey na him kick person get red card abi na him miss empty net?

The good thing is after the disappointment with Nigeria he went on to coach Iceland and helped them overachieve and thereby reminded doubters of is management ability. As for Nigeria, we went on to appoint Eguavon and then Siasia and then failed to qualify for AFCON 2012 with all our 'superstars'

The same may happen with Rohr the way Nigerian fans are going. NA una sabi.

chrisooblog:
i've read many reasons of what caused our ouster but i think alot of them are unrealistic. for one based on the calibre of players we paraded it wasn't a huge surprise that we couldn't make it out of our group. compared to croatia and argentina most of our players are not world beaters. people may say o but argentina was terrible but it took a french team full of world class players to best them. As much as rohr has his faults in the way he coached the super eagles at the world cup the truth is if odion had buried his chances we probably won't be having this conversation. sacking him with the mindset that the next person will perform magic and tactically turn your average players to world beaters is plainly delusional. you can have the best tactics but if your personnel are not up to scratch then unless your opposition is seriously off form and you are playing out of your skin more often than not you will lose. even klopp that said with lesser teams you can beat more talented opposition why is he not coaching bristol city or watford or huddersfield to prove his point. he prefers to coach teams that have appreciable levels of talent that will give him a chance. bringing it back to why we didn't succeed in russia i think the attacking talent we paraded let us down. apart from musa nobody brought their A game as far as the striking department was concerned. ighalo, KC and moses didn't do enough in my opinion. we can blame rohr for not giving iwobi and simmy enough chances to show what they could do

Bunique:
reading through this thread i just feel most Nigerians are ingrates. we forget so easily and are very quick to over hype our abilities. i will not forget the general atmosphere of our football before Rohr took over. look at the teams still at the tournament check where their players play compare that with our players.
many persons here before the world cup had no problem with Ighalo making the squad so why the insult on Rohr for taking Ighalo? tactics did not take us out rather our players failed and many persons here were happy with the players selected for the world cup. please let's move on and learn to appreciate because with this attitude no coach would want to work with us.

ebony111:
5odds Sportybet ccc BUGOFF

Crownbefitsme:
France and Uruguay over 2.5 2.58 odd

lostluggage:
PLS I HAVE A QUESTION
WHY IS BLAC.K A.XE CENSORED ON NL?

PweetyMj:
@SlayerForever

I get your drift, but you at least you can't deny that the message of the post has not been passed.

in addition to not speaking Igbo- are not fully articulate in any other language as to be said to be truly unilingual.

One year, in Enugu, I met a 5 year old, born to Igbo parents, of whom I was proudly told, “she speaks only English” when she could not respond to my “Kedụ?” An Igbo child growing up in the heartland of ala Igbo could not respond to the very basic, “Kedụ?” Let that sink in for a minute because it illustrates just how deep the problem is. I switched to English.
How are you?”
“I yam fine.” “
“How old are you?”
“How old yam I is one years old, how old yam I is two years old…” And on she went in a sing-song voice until she got to 5. I tried to have a conversation with her in the only language she understood and could ‘speak’, but her spoken English was only marginally better than her non existent Igbo. She could not name simple animals, got her grammar and tenses wrong. It was a depressing experience

whose title I forget now.

Instead of celebrating Igbo language and culture (as one would expect from a book written in Igbo by an Igbo writer), the author denigrated both.

in addition to not speaking Igbo- are not fully articulate in any other language as to be said to be truly unilingual.

One year, in Enugu, I met a 5 year old, born to Igbo parents, of whom I was proudly told, “she speaks only English” when she could not respond to my “Kedụ?” An Igbo child growing up in the heartland of ala Igbo could not respond to the very basic, “Kedụ?” Let that sink in for a minute because it illustrates just how deep the problem is. I switched to English.
How are you?”
“I yam fine.” “
“How old are you?”
“How old yam I is one years old, how old yam I is two years old…” And on she went in a sing-song voice until she got to 5. I tried to have a conversation with her in the only language she understood and could ‘speak’, but her spoken English was only marginally better than her non existent Igbo. She could not name simple animals, got her grammar and tenses wrong. It was a depressing experience

whose title I forget now.

Instead of celebrating Igbo language and culture (as one would expect from a book written in Igbo by an Igbo writer), the author denigrated both.

in addition to not speaking Igbo- are not fully articulate in any other language as to be said to be truly unilingual.

One year, in Enugu, I met a 5 year old, born to Igbo parents, of whom I was proudly told, “she speaks only English” when she could not respond to my “Kedụ?” An Igbo child growing up in the heartland of ala Igbo could not respond to the very basic, “Kedụ?” Let that sink in for a minute because it illustrates just how deep the problem is. I switched to English.
How are you?”
“I yam fine.” “
“How old are you?”
“How old yam I is one years old, how old yam I is two years old…” And on she went in a sing-song voice until she got to 5. I tried to have a conversation with her in the only language she understood and could ‘speak’, but her spoken English was only marginally better than her non existent Igbo. She could not name simple animals, got her grammar and tenses wrong. It was a depressing experience

PweetyMj:
If proverbs are the palmoil with which words are eaten (Achebe), then words are the sustenance which gives life, so why are we (Ndigbo) killing ourselves by killing our (words), our language?

Travels to Nigeria and to Igboland suggest that we are raising a generation of Igbos who-

in addition to not speaking Igbo- are not fully articulate in any other language as to be said to be truly unilingual.

One year, in Enugu, I met a 5 year old, born to Igbo parents, of whom I was proudly told, “she speaks only English” when she could not respond to my “Kedụ?” An Igbo child growing up in the heartland of ala Igbo could not respond to the very basic, “Kedụ?” Let that sink in for a minute because it illustrates just how deep the problem is. I switched to English.
“How are you?”
“I yam fine.” “
“How old are you?”
“How old yam I is one years old, how old yam I is two years old…” And on she went in a sing-song voice until she got to 5. I tried to have a conversation with her in the only language she understood and could ‘speak’, but her spoken English was only marginally better than her non existent Igbo. She could not name simple animals, got her grammar and tenses wrong. It was a depressing experience.
That same week , I went to church in Enugu and was alarmed (and disappointed) to hear almost every child present- in this working to middle class area of town- speaking (with varying proficiencies) in English. Like the 5 year old I had met earlier, some of them were not fluent in the only language they “spoke.” Some spoke a mixture of pidgin and standard English, some spoke a mélange of pidgin, standard English and Igbo. For instance, I overheard one ask another, “What time dis church is going to ….” He stopped and sifted through his mind for the right word but not finding it, gave up and said, “What time dis church is going to gbasa?” ‘Gbasa’ being Igbo for ‘dismiss.’ I found it both funny and heartbreaking at the same time.
The next year when I was in Port Harcourt for a book festival, I bought a few books written in Igbo from an already limited choice. One of them was a novel whose title I forget now. Instead of celebrating Igbo language and culture (as one would expect from a book written in Igbo by an Igbo writer), the author denigrated both. The protagonist’s spectacular rise in status was summed up at the end by “ọ na-asụzi bekee ka ndi ocha. Nwa ha anaghi kwanụ asụ Igbo. Sọsọ bekee ka ọ na-atapiri“: (She spoke English like the English. Their child spoke no Igbo. She spoke only English).The protagonist’s wicked uncle’s family, on the other hand, (naturally) fell on hard times and their daughter who spoke only Igbo could only stare wide eyed, envious, uncomprehending as her cousin spoke English all day long (Ha!Ha!Ha!). The End.
A friend told me the story of being at a shoe shop in Nnewi (I believe) when a man came in with his young son. This man consistently spoke in English to his son, telling him to “tight your leg in the shoe.” My friend, intrigued (and I suspect irritated), asked the man “Ọ na ọha anụ Igbo?” The man proudly answered in the negative. His son did not understand Igbo. My friend asked if they lived in Nnewi (Yes). If both parents were Igbo (Yes). The man did not find anything wrog with how he had chosen to raise his son. As far as he was concerned, it was a sign of upward mobility.
English is no longer the preserve of the upper class whose children have access to holidays abroad and “good schools” where students were punished for speaking in the “vernacular” but is available too to the children of the working class. I understand the impulse for parents , especially parents on the lower social strata, to want a better life for their children, and in a country like Nigeria to see being proficient in English as a means to getting that better life. What I do not understand is why it must come at the cost of our own language.
Sometimes , when I ask why our children growing up in Igboland (especially) do not speak Igbo, parents say, “What will they do with Igbo in the future?” They fail to understand that ‘what they will do with it” is not as easily quantifiable as one might seem to think. Pride in one’s culture of which language is one, is not as easily quantifiable as economic gains for instance.
Of course, this denigration of our language (and culture) did not start today. O tee go. When the Europeans came as traders, missionaries and colonial administrators and took over Igboland by force, English language was introduced and imposed through the Education Codes and Ordinances. The new elite – the kotuma , the interpreters, and the colonial administrators carried out all their business in English. Igbo became a second class language, irrelevant for anyone wishing to get/stay ahead. We are still living with the consequences today.
According to UNESCO, of the nearly 7000 languages in the world, one dies every two weeks. That is a sobering thought. More sobering when you realize that although Igbo isn’t dead yet, it is classified as an endangered language. One of the 3 major languages of Nigeria, with over 25 million native speakers, is an endangered language. Let that sink in…And then let us get to work to turn the tide. Taa bụ gboo.

Chika Unigwe

Source

BascoVanVeli:
Egyptian football revolution to take Africa by storm

There is a revolution taking place in Egyptian football that has ramifications for the whole African continent, with the birth of a new super club that threatens to shake up the established order.

The sale of modest Alassiouty Sport -- a team in the ancient town of Asyut on the banks of the Nile some 400 kilometres south of Cairo -- to Saudi billionaire Turki al-Sheikh has seen the new owner invest over US$33-million on players alone in a little over a week.

Al Sheikh, who is also the chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Sports Authority, essentially making him the country's sports minister, was previously honorary president of Al Ahly, and reportedly a financial backer of the team.

But he resigned in May and after a fallout with the board -- just five months into his tenure -- decided to buy his own club over which he would have full control, and start a new super team to dominate the African continent.

He installed former Ahly coach Hossam El-Badry as the chairman of the club on a reported salary of €2.5-million per year, just as the tactician was about to sign on the dotted line for South African Premier Soccer League giants Kaizer Chiefs.

Al Sheikh has also brought in Brazilian coach Alberto Valentim from Botafogo, a former right-back who played for Udinese and Siena in Italy.

Boosting the technical team further is Argentine former Mexico national team coach Ricardo La Volpe, who took the country to the Last 16 of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Added to that, there are four players signed from Brazilian clubs for a total of US$20-million, most notably winger Keno from Palmeiras, as well as two other wide midfielders, Carlos Eduardo (Goiás) and Arthur (Chapecoense), and striker Ribamar (Atlético Paranaense).

Al Sheikh has not confined himself to just raiding the South American country though; he has also taken Egypt internationals Tarek Hamed and Ali Gabr from Zamalek, weakening their challenge, as well as highly-rated Mohamed Magdy from ENPPI and Mohamed Hamdi from Al-Masary.

There have already been 18 new arrivals confirmed in what is a complete overhaul of the squad that has seen many of the players from last season either released or put on the transfer-list.

It is essentially the reshaping of a team from top to bottom, in terms of playing staff, coaching and management, and while there might be a period of adjustment, it could take Pyramids FC not only to the top of Egyptian football immediately, but also African football.

Their benefactor appears to have deeper pockets than most club owners on the continent, and is certainly not afraid to splash the cash.

Turki al-Sheikh chats to the Saudi Arabia team ahead of the 2018 World Cup Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

To put it into perspective, Mamelodi Sundowns owner Patrice Motsepe has a net worth of almost US2-billion and has been generous in funding his club. The team's acquisition of Venezuelan striker Jose Ali Meza for a reported R13-million is a South African record transfer fee paid.

But Brazilian Keno alone cost Pyramids FC almost R140-million, spending that no other team on the continent will be able to match.

Al Sheikh is a key sports figure in the Arab world, holding positions not on in Saudi Arabia's General Sports Authority, but also the Union of Arab Football Associations, Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee and the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation, and is also a member of the Saudi Royal Court. He was appointed to head the General Sports Authority in September last year, soon after the start of the reign of Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He has made some quick strides, allowing women to enter football stadiums for the first time ever, agreeing partnership deals with Spain's La Liga and the Italian Serie A, and roping in legendary former German international Oliver Kahn to set up a goalkeeping academy in the country for the national teams.

Quite how or why he is so interested in Egyptian football has never been made clear, though he could see it as a gateway into the African market.

What is clear is that he has changed the game on the continent and Pyramids FC is a name we will likely be hearing much more of in the coming years.

http://kwese.espn.com/football/egypt/story/3556606/egypt-football-pyramids-fc-saudi-billionaire-turki-al-al-sheikh

prolog2:
Asaba is part of Delta state which was part of Bendel which was part of Benin Kingdom.
The Obi of Onitcha himself aknowledges his Edo roots and the Edo origin of his crown.
Nowadays, there are too many folks like you who just believe they can make up their history and write off what they don't like.

TheKingIsHere:
It's as if obiano doesn't want people to know that ebonyi people are also rich and blessed unlike the norm that people believe of the ebonyi man as poor and gala sellers.

An ebonyi man developed that area to what it is today, give them that respect and change it back to Abakiliki street.