₦airaland Forum

same Daniel Amokachi was part of the one million man march for Abacha....


not new...

this guy babalawo strong...

OKorowanta:
The argument was Hadji won CAF player award because he featured both at France 98 and Burkina Faso '98 as a quarter finalist while Okocha was featured only at d world cup no thanks to d four year ban CAF handed Nigeria after we withdrew from South Africa 96 during Abacha's high handedness and trying to get back at Mandela for hitting us with some sanctions during the Ken Sarowiwa saga.
CAF later prove they got it all wrong wit the 98 awards wen they awarded Yaya Toure the Africa gong by virtue of a sterling performance with Man city jettisoning a Nations cup top performer under the year in review.
What was mustapha Hadji's price tag after the World Cup?
Statistics don't lie as Okocha went on to become the costliest African player after the world cup.
Because the CAF Awards organisers got it wrong by gifting Hadji the award doesn't change the fact that humans are mistakes prone.
Not all judgements are right in life.
You are just an Okocha hater.
The few times you wrote something nice about him was deliberate so it would seem like u are trying to balance d write up.

Don't mind the guy...the guys said players who had impact....then later says its the ones who won laurels...do u know that the last time okocha was in PSG...they all lined up and clapped for him-including zlatan....ronaldinho....and others acknowledge him as the greatest African...pochetino and aladyce say he is the greatest player they have seen from Africa...okocha is easily the best naija player ever...qed

hisexcellency34:
Even Agbaje himself admitted that his deputy is unknown to PDP members in Lagos. Error number one

she doesnt have to be known. she is a technocrat. a corporate governance specialist.

she was group company secretary for honeywell for decades and people who know gorporate governance will vouch for her. its a great combination being muslim and female.

Woke Soyinka disagrees tho...says atiku stopped buharis fund looting

www.saharareporters.com/2007/01/14/crimes-buhari-wole-soyinka

naptu2:
pocohantas, AbimbolaGCFR, sucess001, SonyObsessed, lloyds, proudlyngwa


Why didn’t Jay Jay Okocha achieve his full potential?


It’s obvious that Jay Jay Okocha shouldn’t be in this list of 6, but it’s also obvious that he is one of the most skilful players to have ever played football. So why isn’t Jay Jay on the list and why didn’t he achieve his full potential?


I remember when the Nigerian media were putting pressure on Clemens Westerhof to invite Okocha to the Super Eagles. Okocha had performed very well for Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga and the Nigerian media (particularly Complete Football) demanded that he should be invited to the Super Eagles.


Westerhof’s response was that Okocha could not be invited to the Super Eagles on the basis of media reports or a few games for Frankfurt, but he would be sent to the Flying Eagles instead and then he could be invited to the Super Eagles if he performed well with the Flying Eagles.


Okocha was included in the squad to the 1993 African Youth Championship in Mauritius in January 1993. He performed very well, despite atrocious coaching by James Peters. In fact, he was the only bright spot in a terrible tournament for Nigeria. He scored from a free kick as Nigeria defeated Mauritius 0-2 (I’ve been trying to remember who scored the second goal, but I can’t. I’ll be grateful if someone can remind me). Okocha was subsequently invited to the Super Eagles.


Okocha scored another free kick goal in his second game for the Super Eagles. It was a World Cup qualifying match against Algeria at the National Stadium in Lagos and Nigeria won 4-1. That game solidified his position in the Super Eagles.


However, the problems began to show soon after. There are 3 players that I consider to be probably the most skilful players to have ever won a Green Eagles/Super Eagles jersey and they all have the same problem – discipline!


These 3 players are Tarila Okorowanta, Etim Esin and Jay Jay Okocha. There are two types of disciplinary problems. There are disciplinary problems on the field and disciplinary problems off the field. Okocha was far more successful than the other two because his disciplinary problems only manifested on the field, not off it.


Tarila Okorowanta had an opportunity to score in the 1982 Principal’s Cup final, but he was too elaborate and tried to dribble the goal keeper back and forth, instead of simply playing the ball into the net, so the goalkeeper caught the ball. Coach Kashimawo Laloko was furious. He got up and shouted at Tarila.


Tarila was in the same position just a few minutes later and this time he successfully dribbled the keeper and scored. Then he ran to the bench and said, “Coach, why you dey shout? You no see say I just wan dress the ball before the keeper catch am?”


My dad advised Chris Udemezue to take Tarila to the World Cup (Mexico ’83), but Udemezue replied, “Sir, that boy too get wahala o!” Udemezue eventually took him to the World Cup and he scored Nigeria’s only goal at the tournament (a 1-0 victory over the Soviet Union).


Tarila later played for Nigeria at the 1984 Nations Cup and then he vanished in London in 1987 when Shooting Stars were on their way to play a continental game.


I’m sure that everybody remembers Ernest Okonkwo’s famous commentary on Radio Nigeria:





These players were incredibly skilful and exceptionally talented and they loved to play, but sometimes it seemed like their enjoyment of the game was in conflict with the goals of the team as a whole.


Clemens Westerhof noticed that Jay Jay loved to over-dribble sometimes and that he often lost the ball because he wanted to dribble too many players, rather than pass to a player that was free, so he benched Jay Jay. He started Mutiu Adepoju instead of Jay Jay and sometimes brought Jay Jay from the bench. The media were furious. They wanted Jay Jay to start every match, but Westerhof explained that he was not freezing Jay Jay out of the team. He just wanted him to learn to play to instructions.


It seemed like Westerhoff’s tactics worked because Jay Jay played very well at the 1994 Nations Cup and World Cup. However, the problem had not been totally eliminated.


I enjoyed watching Eintracht Frankfurt in the mid-1990s. The NTA, in conjunction with Transtel, showed “Football Made In Germany” every week. It featured a star match and highlights of other matches in the Bundesliga. I also followed the Bundesliga on the BBC. My favourite players at Frankfurt were Okocha, Yeboah and Maurizio Gaudino. They were the most skilful and entertaining players in the team. Okocha and Gaudino were midfielders, while Yeboah (the Black Stars number 9) was a Yekini-like striker.


Unfortunately these three players fell out with the coach, Jupp Heynckes and he benched them. The BBC interviewed either Okocha or Yeboah (I can’t remember which) and the player explained what happened. He said that they were playing a fun game of keepie uppie or man-in-the-middle and the coach was watching. Heynckes then ordered them to play seriously. After that he took the three of them aside and complained about their attitude and from then on he started benching them.


Yeboah and Gaudino eventually left and went to the Premiership, but Okocha stayed on to fight for his place in the team. Frankfurt were eventually relegated at the end of the 1995/1996 season and Okocha left and signed with Fenerbahce.


The best and most frustrating game that I saw Okocha play for Fenerbahce was the 1996/1997 UEFA Champions League group game against Manchester United at Old Trafford. Okocha created chance after chance after chance and Elvir Bolic wasted them. Fenerbahce (with Okocha pulling the strings) outplayed Man-U at Old Trafford and should have won by 4 or 5 goals but they ended up winning by just 1 goal because Bolic wasted the opportunities that Okocha created. I wished that I could put my hands into the TV and strangle Bolic.


However, like I said, the problems remained. Many Nigerians wished that they could banish Okocha from the Super Eagles in the late 1990s. He became fond of dribbling aimlessly. He would dribble and dribble until he lost the ball and then he would smile. I’m not sure what annoyed Nigerians more, whether it was his aimless dribbling or the smile after he lost the ball. “Why doesn’t he at least attempt to win the ball back?”


There was a game that I watched in the late 1990s in which the British commentator complained about Okocha. He could not understand why Okocha was fond of performing his party tricks around the centre circle where it was totally unnecessary. He felt that Okocha should have been performing those tricks in and around the penalty box so that he could draw penalties and free kicks in dangerous areas.


The second problem that Nigerians had with him was the issue of his free kicks. He was always assigned the free kick taking duty because people remembered the free kick goals that he scored in 1993, but he had developed a habit of ballooning the ball over the post and then smiling after playing an atrocious free kick. A friend of mine complained that he would go to the National Stadium to stage a one man protest if Okocha was allowed to take another free kick for Nigeria.



Okocha’s time at PSG was a very frustrating time for me. He spent too much time on the bench. It was frustrating because he would produce moments of brilliant magic on the few occasions that he was allowed to play, but they would relegate him back to the bench for the next game. For instance, there was a game in which he came off the bench to score a spectacular goal. Everybody was talking about that goal. But he was back on the bench for the next game.



The issue of his free kicks came up again when he was at PSG. I listened to an interview that he gave on BBC Fast Track in the late ‘90s or early 2000s. The interviewer (who was Nigerian, if I remember correctly) asked him why he wasn’t taking free kicks anymore. The interviewer said that he remembered that Okocha scored free kick goals in the early 1990s and he wondered why he was not taking free kicks at PSG. Okocha replied that they did not give him the opportunity to take free kicks.


I told my brother about this interview and he replied with a question, “Do they give you the opportunity to take free kicks or do you create the opportunity?” He said that there was no way that they would not have given Okocha the opportunity to take free kicks if he had been scoring free kick goals in training. He reminded me of a player (I think it was Zico) who had made cardboard cut-outs of a defensive wall and had placed the cut-outs and a goal in his back garden and had developed the habit of taking 100 free kicks a day. It’s not enough to have the talent and skill. You need to practice it consistently and utilise it often. I thought, “That might be why Okocha plays his free kicks towards Ojuelegba, rather than at the goal”.


These issues of over-dribbling, not trying to win the ball back when you lose it, skying the ball when playing free kicks and not playing to the instructions of the coach might have been the reasons why Okocha didn’t get the opportunity to play at many big clubs and it might also be the reason why he was often on the bench when he was at a big club like PSG. Coaches really hate these issues.


However, Okocha moved to Bolton Wanderers in 2002 and his game dramatically improved. He was consistently scoring free kick goals (no more wayward free kicks), his defensive game had tremendously improved, his habit of dribbling aimlessly had greatly reduced and he had added a new skill to his bag of tricks – his amazing throw-ins. Okocha developed the ability to deliver massive throw-ins, which were like corner kicks, while he was at Bolton. He could easily lob the ball from the side-line into the penalty box to create a goal scoring opportunity for his team.


I listened to a programme on the BBC in the early or mid-2000s in which some British football experts were trying to determine the best free kick takers. They compared Roberto Carlos, David Beckham, Jay Jay Okocha (and I think Juninho was in the list, but I can’t remember for sure).


They said that Roberto Carlos scored unbelievable free kicks, but he was not consistent. Some of his free kicks went wildly off target. They said that David Beckham was very consistent and had been scoring free kick goals for a while. They were surprised by Okocha because they felt that he had recently suddenly become very good at taking free kicks. I was very angry. “What do they mean by recently”, I thought. “He has been scoring from free kicks since 1993!”


But, thinking about it now, I realise that I can’t blame them. Okocha’s free kicks became quite terrible in the late 1990s and you would not have compared him with Beckham and Carlos at that time.


Unfortunately, all these happened at Bolton, which was a very small club. Imagine if these improvements had occurred earlier in His career, when he was at Frankfurt or PSG. He would most likely have had the opportunity to play at a big club or he would have had more opportunities when he was at a big club like PSG.


Okocha was not as prominent in the football world when he was still playing as the 6 players in the list. In fact, I have a strong feeling that most of the comments about him are fuelled by clips of his party tricks that have been posted on YouTube. He has had more acclaim from these clips than he had during his playing days.


In fact, I remember what happened during nominations for the 2004 BBC African Player of the Year. I listened to Fast Track religiously, so I knew when nominations were open. I emailed a friend and told him to vote for Okocha, but he replied that he would not vote for Okocha because he felt that Eto'o had a better season. Okocha eventually won, but other Africans protested to the BBC. They claimed that Nigerians were winning the award because of our larger population which translated into more votes. They said that Eto'o had a better season and should have won. The BBC subsequently changed the rules of the competition. The winner was previously selected entirely by listeners, but after 2004 the BBC decided to get African football experts (journalists, coaches, etc) to nominate the top 3, then the listeners would be allowed to vote the winner from those 3 players. This was to prevent Nigerians from nominating only Nigerians for the award.


Okocha is an absolutely phenomenal player and he is one of my favourite players, but he did not attain the level of acclaim that the players in the list got and that was because he:



1) He never won the Ballon d’Or Africain or CAF African Player of the Year. All the players in the list won it and most of them won it twice.


2) He never got into the top 10 of the FIFA World Player of the Year or the main Ballon d’Or. All the players listed after 1995 got into the top ten of the FIFA World Player of the Year.


3) He never played in the final of any major continental club competition. All the players listed played in finals of major continental cup competitions. Not only did they play in the final, but they scored important goals or provided important assists in the quarter-final, semi-final or final of those competitions.

4) He was never the far and away standout African player at any World Cup competition. The 3 players that immediately come to mind when you mention Italia ’90 are Salvatore Schillaci, Roger Milla and Diego Maradona. Milla was a global icon after Italia ’90.

Who was the standout African player in France 98?

Stupid. He could and should be arrested for battery

I wish to marry her...

Good thread...spoilt by the absence of okocha...even a lot of foreigners will tell u okocha is the greatest of them all

as Roman Goddess don upstage am as Miss Olosho Nigeria...her economy is on a downward spiral.

Hunter Killer

King of Boys

Infinity War

Ambode World Press Conference on Sanwo Olu

Agbaje will win this election. Propaganda or using online agents can't save APC. I am not a PDP loyalists...I supported APC strongly last time out. Check my posts pre 2015.

I have only discovered APC is a fraud....go read animal farm....you ll understand

if you dream and see that it is one dollar to =N= 3000, it means PMB is about to win election....

Hope he will get to Gbagada General Hospital too?

wait o...the guy in the middle third row...they used him to do space between 'merry'and 'xmas'

He just admitted to being a fraud. He has no affiliation to the UN...even the unknown organisation he belongs to has said they will investigate.

Nigerian youths are generally daft...imagine people defending his action as being an act of haters. We need to learn to condemn fraud when we see it. No wonder we are seen as a corrupt people. We celebrate wealth even wen we know its fraudulent. If this guy was in the us....he would be behind bars by now

LuvSwollenPussy:
Guess he has a soft spot for big booties

Yep....hez been screwing american IndecentStar lethal lipps for almost a month now...

At least dem try give ezenwa bed...as per person wey don go world cup before....

Apostle will hear of this....

johnjay4u2u:
is he the Governor to declare free access?
and if he paid, whose money did he use?


omo Eko r'onu.
lagosians, think.

Eko o ni baje.

Of course he didn't pay...using government institutions for personal campaign...hallmark of the ApC govt

AlhajaChinyere:
Go back to your state na.

Stop being silly. Lagos is my state.

“We suffered 16 years of their failure and fake promises. We have made progress in Lagos We have become the fifth largest economy in Africa.'

Lagosians have suffered 20 years of APC's failures and fake promises. go to Mile 2, go to Badagry expressway..go to festac..you will wonder what APC has been doing in government for 20 years.'

to say lagos is the fifth lagest economy is silly. it became so because of po[pulation not on any deliberate economic policy of the APC govt other than taxing lagosians to death...

Time to vote out APC is now....

sucess001:
still looking...

Still on the look out

hisexcellency34:
The only person is Dr Olapade Agoro of NAC. With the kind of support he is receiving everyday, i will be shocked if he doesn't defeat Atiku and Buhari combined

1st class weed in effect

still looking...

Vacancy exists for a personal driver.

Salary is btw 35-40k.

Must be educated and articulate and living in Ogudu, Ojota, or Ketu.

Interested persons should call 08173650923.

Thanks.

justfash50:
2019 is close by, you will come and eat your vomit.

Sanwo Eko achievement speaks for him, go to Alausa , he is very much on ground with civil servants and his constituents.

We don't celebrate half baked intellect, lagosians go for the best of the best. He is one of those that lay the road map for the master plan of Lagos.

i am trying to understand wat you mean by this achievement?

iammo:
$35 billion with more than 60% going to recurrent expenditure, as Lagos civil service caters for more than 20million people, especially the economic migrants and the ipobian almajiri that arrives by the seconds in their ifesenachi buses. A good manager sees his responsibilities before measuring his own wealth

Which recurrent expenditure? U mean tunubus pocket Abi?

@Hhenry

Why not take her to the hospital rather than tie her up in that dirty place like a goat waiting to be slaughtered

sleekchic:
Good evening,

Solid bunk bed N75,000
Split AC 1.5HP N45,000
Very clean Kia Rio 2013 N1.5M

Contact number - 08179071555

Thank you

can i take the split for 35?