₦airaland Forum

tbaba1234:
Do our reporters provide too much information on our training sessions? I feel like I can already tell how we will line up.

Reporters will probably only be allowed to open sessions that don't reveal the core tactics of the team. They would have been invited to these sessions with the expectation that they will report on what they see anyway, since that is their job

forgiveness:
Yes! Yekini wasn't an instant hit with the national team (na who tell you that one) yet was an instant hit with his clubs. Na still d same thing I dey talk.

Chinekemeee! You mean Kanu Nwankwo was chopping bench in Iwanyanwu in 1993 and Ajax 1994 before Clement called him?

Abeg! Like your mouth, na lie full am.

Kanu wasn't an Ajax regular in 1994. He played about 5 or 6 matches all season. I will submit that it is legitimate to conclude the basis for his invitation was the interaction Westerhof had with him when he was working the U17 team prior to their final qualifiers against Algeria a year earlier.

komekn:
So what about those who stand out in thier teams proven, tested and established top consistent performers in top level teams and league.

They should be left aside denied opportunity, excluded until Rohr decides according to his own self based and self justified unit of measurement that they are worthy.

That's defies reasoning.

Yes. He is the coach and the buck ends at his table. If the team fails, he will be the one who loses his job, not the players selected or ignored. If the ignored players are that ood, they have nothing to lose as a new coach will call them up. Players also don't need their national teams to be successful (George Weah, Ibrahimovich Litmanen etc come to mind). I dont know why this is hard to understand

And by the way, people are appointed to exercise their judgment in certain matters. That is what leaders do. Let's give them the chance to do that. If you become a coach, not everyone who is aligned with you in this current argument will agree with your decisions as well as many will seem irrational. That is why you don't have 2 people with equal powers leading any organization. Someone needs to exercise their own judgment, so they can take responsibility for whatever comes along.

The cameroonian coach took a 38 year old Milla to the world cup against the wishes of many in 1990.

zxcvb:
commonsense isn't common afterall
When oshomole told that woman "go and die" u all castigated him.... well it is understandable cuz he's a friend to d govt.

Now fayose did same thing using a different approach and u hate filled, ignorant, double faced bigots are here singing his praises to d high heavens......
Ur mumuness no get part two.. what fayose did was absolutely wrong....
asking who moji was? is absolutely disgusting

Lol, I am tempted to agree with your first sentence/ line about common sense as I don't think you read my post, otherwise you wouldn't have included this line "here singing his praises to d high heavens". Oga, where are the praises in the post?

Mr common sense, please note that Oshiomole wasn't a friend of the government as you stated when he told a woman to "go and die". Also, he was directly responsible for what the woman was facing then too. No be everybody be APC Vs PDP dummies who cannot isolate issues to address them

zxcvb:
get sense na.. but d gov can use public funds to buy ponmo and share two cups of rice abi but cannot use d same funds to sponsor the burial of moji Olaiya who was an indigene and Cultural Ambassador of the state

It is not the responsibility of the state to bury its indigenes or its cultural ambassadors! How many Ekiti or Lagos State indigenes' funerals have been footed by Fayose, Ambode, Fasola in their capacity as governors? Why should Moji's own be different except of course you are suggesting that anyone whose relatives die outside of their state should request financial assistance from their indigenous state governments?

And yes, he can use public funds to feed the living in his state. That is not a selective exercise as any indigene is entitled to benefit from that. Think about it this way: which do you think indigenes who haven't been paid their salaries would prefer: distribution of food or the burial of their customer ambassador with state funds, even though her role as an ambassador was not the remote or immediate cause of her death?

Icon4s:
Which Nigerian Team is this?

I am guessing an U17 or U23 team between '95 and '97?

You don't learn life hacks in the four walls of a classroom! In fact, most useful education occurs outside the four walls!

Education isn't physics, maths or economics and you don't need to have formal education to be able to manage your finances. All you need is to know your limitations and find experts who can help you and this comes from exposure.

I have heard people talk about US , UK with reference to education and I wonder if they really know what they are talking about. A cursory look at the education budget in these countries or the ratio of international students to home grown students will make the truth clearer.

I will give you a personal anecdote: I worked for 4 years as an analyst in an investment bank before leaving the UK and I found one curious thing: The heads of my trading team didn't see the four walls of a university! they started their careers as boys who were passing trading punch cards in the exchange, mastered it and they are top investment bankers today. In the grand scheme of things, classroom education didnt help them, rather they found their passion, reinvented themselves and they are where they are today.

I make bold to say that what makes these societies tick is specialization. People developing skills relevant to their passion. Why should a Jay Jay Okocha worry about not mastering mathematics when he could devote more time in honing his dribbling skills? Does that mean you can cheat him in business? Certainly not! Why? business skills are not taught in the classroom.

The earlier we do away with our worship of "formal education" in our country, the better for us. Education doesn't begin and end in the classroom, shikena! Advanced countries realize this and they are rewarded for it!

The earlier we helped children identify their passion and support them, the better.



I have so much to say about this matter just not able to type now

Certitude:
Keshi played 4-4-2. Mikel was at the center of the four with Igiebor in the cape verde friendly prior to AFCON.

Mba replaced Igiebor in the starting line up in our last group game against Ethiopia and subsequent matches

Onazi took Ogude's place in the quarter finals due to a suspension

mastermaestro:
Joshua is a false prophet in his twilight. His relocation to Israel is an escape from imminent disgrace and Divine judgment. Like Oyakilomhe, like Joshua...false teachers...ministers of satan posing as angels of light.

The bolded got me!
Bros there is something amiss here as you seem to be insinuating that God's divine judgment can be escaped by traveling a few thousand miles?

TheGoodJoe:
Favorite moments of Yekini was his lob over a keeper (can not remember the team we played against in Tunisia 94), then the ball bounced up and he nodded it into the net.

He did this twice: Against Ethiopia in 93 and against Gabon in 94

TheGoodJoe:
Also his long range freekick (also can not remember the team) but the power in that shot was unbelievable.

This one plenty, but the most audacious was against Congo away in 1993. after the match the bus carrying the players was attacked

You could find these clips on youtube:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_FCwkxw08g at 2:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXxsP2GNc3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNpHxoh7LdY

Congrats to the couple!

I have however always wondered why men make proposals a public affair. What could the possible benefit be other than coercing the lady to say "Yes" in order to save face?

What other reason could there be?

tbaba1234:
Ndidi left Genk during winter break in a transfer window and the move was approved by the club.

MFM was not even aware of Odey's plan to go to Denmark. These are not comparable things.

If i am not an advocate for the progress of Nigerian football, I will not come to this thread daily. Instead of talking/debating issues, you decided that it was my intentions as if i benefit anything from any player.

@tbaba,

One thing I have observed about our society is that people find it difficult to believe one can point out negatives, areas of improvement, or be critical about quality in any way without "hate". You register your dissatisfaction about anything (players, government, anything at all) and you are called names. You know your own motives and people who read your posts can also make up their own minds. No need to sweat to defend your position!

Earth2Metahuman:
this is someone who gets it.

When russia and english fans went bloody at euro, they didn't see it as big deal, if rangers and kano pillars go at it, the insult on every nigerians begin.

Its as a result of chronic inferiority complex

The one wey vex me pass na the Adebolajo incident in 2013. Social media was awash with disclaimers from Nigerian friends as if anyone cared where those boys were from, and I was like wth? How does this make any Nigerian complicit in this?

I have never seen a Saudi Arabian publicly disown any radical suicide attacker before. Neither have citizens of other countries come out to disown their own. Despite this, a Saudi man will be more likely to get a visa to the US/UK than a Nigerian will on top the disclaimers.

They even get away with lots of crimes in these western countries because of the dollar wey them carry

lovelygurl:
Nope

Have you?

Sure. Especially during rush hour (Subway/Tubes and Buses)

I have even seen a driver stop in the middle of the road to scream at someone else before

Also happens in supermarkets/ Shopping Malls etc

Earth2Metahuman:
Inferiority complex dey worry those who comment above.

When did it become such a big disgrace to the entire country to fight in public?

Oyinbo no dey fight for public abi?

Why not insult those fighting and disgracing themselves in the public instead of making it look like a national fight.

Petrol dey una head.

I am very tempted to conclude the same whenever any activity between Nigerians abroad gets termed a "national disgrace". I don't hear people saying foreign football fans who misbehave in away games are bringing shame on Countries. But wait for a Nigerian fan to be involved in an altercation or brawl and people come out to say they are disgracing their country

lovelygurl:
I have never seen two white ADULTS do sth like that. Teens yeah, but adults no. So embarrassing

Uhnn? Never seen a public altercation between two white adults before?

IslamicRebel:
You are on point. Sadly every other person is not using their brain.

This is a case of scam. People monitor other people so closely. He probably knew she had an upcoming surgery.

Check his profile properly. You will discover that he is not a prophet as he wants people to believe.

Nigerians wake up.

I understand your skepticism.
But consider that many have had dreamlike experiences that foretold subsequent events they had no foreknowledge of. Whatever anyone chooses to ascribe them to (spiritual/metaphysical or otherwise) is immaterial to the fact that they do indeed happen.

Dreamwaker:
So if she died before the screenshot of the messages was taken, who was online 9 minutes ago?I don't think the Angels or the devil will allow mobile phones in Heaven or hell.

Thought provoking question!

These are the possibilities though:

1. He took the screenshot 9 mins after the convo or sometime before her death (for record keeping purposes? )
2. He took the screenshot 9 mins after her death
3. Her friends and family still have access to her phone and occassionally check her social media accounts due to notifications of RIP on her wall (very plausible)

Icon4s:
Calm down. I can categorically tell you that by the time we are through with The WC qualifiers and we finish tops that defense would have gained some appreciable cohesion.

As i have maintained, playing Cameroun in Younde and Algeria in Blida or Algiers can be almost as challenging as playing France or Argentina in London.

We take it step after step. Lets qualify first and then we build from there.

True talk.
On more than a few occasions in the past, facing African teams in competitive matches has been more challenging for Nigeria than friendly matches with top rated oppositions

Kog45:
Did u remember Chidi Nwanu went Seoul 88,this was d period National team play Olympic not U23.Nwanu at that time had a great experience at home and very advanced in age before moving to Beveren and later Anderlecht,USA 94 was like a normal tournament for him.

Sometimes major tournament count as experience to some players but to some their club experience can withstand any tournament.Taribo may not have Afcon experience before France 98 but his club experience was enough to play in any tourney.

Truly our CB needs cohesiveness and understanding but i believe with time d CB w blend.Truth must be told d CB are not yet there but with time they w go places.

@Kog 45

You just proved the crux of my post: You shouldn't be considered inexperienced because you never played in a big tournament. This was the reason I mentioned Taribo West

Joebie:
Experience will come to bear especially in the later stages of the World Cup. Can the inexperienced stand the occasion and the tension that the play off stage brings in a competition of that magnitude? Until France hosted and won the world cup in 98, it has been the usual winners that win it again and again. Reason -- partly experience.

Not discounting experience in any way. Just stating that having a competition specific experience is not more important than the quality of the teams paraded.

Your last line however suggests that world cup winning experience is the reason only a few teams have been winning the world cup. I don't agree with that as none of the winning players since that same 1998 had ever played in a world cup winning team before their triumphs.

I agree that experience is valuable, but only when form is present. I also accept that we would probably have beaten Italy with more experience on our side

goldfish80:
Of course, I believe Troost and Balogun can hold their own. Am rather worried that they haven't played together in a big tournament,that sort of exposure counts when push comes to shove.

Even the 94 CB partnership of Okechukwu and Co had played a couple of Afcons before the world cup, though they still came up short against Italy.

@goldfish, Chidi Nwanu didn't have AFCON experience before USA 94 neither did Taribo in 98

Like safarigirl pointed out, our AFCON winning CB pair didn't even have a lot of national team experience before the tournament and we are not even going to win the world cup next year anyway.

Regarding the bolded, 23 or the 24 teams in the tournament came up short. Nigeria had one of the best defenses at the stage we went out of the competition and they kept out the bulgarian attacking force. Our vulnerability was set pieces which was responsible of for 3 of the 4 goals we conceded!

komekn:
The comparison is without substance and the proposition that underpins it irrelevant.

Firstly within Europe there has been automatic birth date capture at source for over 100 years.

As a consequence how you look is a complete irrelevance as it is not the basis for age verification.

Let's be honest corruption is the order of the day in Nigeria, indeed our highest offices are plagued with deceit, misrepresentation, fraud, corruption etc, etc.

Age cheating is in every facet of life in Nigeria, it didn't start with football. I have a friend who got married to girl older than himself, when he found out it was too late. People keep reducing age with a simple sworn declaration of age.

We are as a people are a reflection of our society. It is impossible in Nigeria to have an irrefutable substantiated date of birth. Because integrity and honesty are not meals served on the dinner table regularly.

It's like we all know that the custom service, the police and our politicians are corrupt. However, I do believe that there are some who possibly are not
I just don't know who they are and one thing is they will be in the very small minority, if indeed there are any.

So bearing in mind our nature, why do some people get so upset when we have doubts about players ages. It baffles me to be honest.

We even now use MRI as evidential basis for true age this is still indicative not conclusive. In 2010 I had ACL reconstruction and two MRI scans at the University teaching hospital in the UK and yes from football. I asked the senior radiographers questions about this approach the conclusion was it was indicative of possible age range.

Below a links to published research in academic journals on the subject matter.

Why do you think the Home office had not introduced MRI scans for age determination, simply it would be considered inadmissible in court because it's not conclusive.

See links to scientific journals where there are published papers on the subject.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dear-fifa-there-is-no-scientific-test-to-prevent-age-fraud

/https://www.mrc.ac.uk/news/browse/study-finds-assessment-of-age-based-on-physical-development-to-be-inaccurate/

@komekn:

The scientific american article suggests that the age range for 2 standard deviations of the age of complete fusion is 16-20 years. This means that only 2.5 of every 100 people tested will pass the MRI fusion test when they are above 20! If this is the case, I will say there is no cause for concern since most of the players are within 3 years of their stated ages unlike the case in the past where we could have as much variance as 8-10 years

As rightly pointed out by a quote in the article, we are ignoring the fact that legitimate under 17 players may be wrongly disqualified. There is also a possibility of it being unfair to Africans, which is the main point of the article. The quotes below highlight these points:

“Maybe people are not concerned about unfairly excluding kids from competition,” Rauch says, “but that’s the inevitable problem.”

“The analysis underpinning FIFA’s age regulation does include some individuals from Algeria(which is in north Africa), yet it does not include anyone from sub-Saharan Africa, where this ruling has been applied before—and is again now. Very little puberty research is focused on the sub-Saharan region, so it is difficult to pinpoint information about the onset and tempo of puberty in Nigeria. But scientists have uncovered variation elsewhere. Multiple studies have shown that kids embark on puberty at different times based on factors including nutrition, environment and ethnic background. Puberty in African-American girls who grow up in the U.S. begins roughly a year earlier, on average, than among white girls, for example”

International Friendly:

Cameroon 1 - 2 Guinea

cc:Icon4s - True talk about match-day form being what matters

TheGoodJoe:
MRI scan is precise on screening out old players due to its ability of detecting fusion in the bones which occurs after a player tuns Seventeen. However, some kids bones fuses before they turn 17.

So an overage (over Seventeen) player can hardly beat the scan but a player younger than Seventeen can fail the test.

Good answer. A legitimate under 17 player has a higher chance of failing the test than an overaged player passing it.

please note that the only season that mattered (with regard to an assessment of his goal scoring abilities) with his time at Inter Milan was 97/98, as injury blighted his career afterwards, that he was almost a doubt for the WC2002 itself

goldfish80:
Let's not kid our selves. The Dutch league then was all about Ajax, Ajax and Ajax. Its not a coincidence they won the league 5X back to back between 1993-1998. They steam rolled teams on their way to the title, at some point they went 52 matches unbeaten in the league.
PSV had a decent team but they had nothing on Ajax. The less said about the rest of the league the better.
You think Ronaldo at 18 would have scored 42 goals in 46 games in a stronger league like Seria A of 1995/96?

Since Ronaldo at 19 scored 47 goals in 49 games for Barcelona in 1996/1997, and was also the world's best player in the season you mentioned above, I am tempted to believe that to be honest

goldfish80:
Yes he has. In the champions league.

Comparing champions league appearances in 2 different eras is unfair. The reason Ronaldo didn't score in the in the champions league in his first 4 seasons in Europe, despite playing for Barcelona and Inter Milan and winning the FIFA World player of year twice was because his teams never appeared in the competition. Champions league was a tournament for just the league champions p. With the dominance of PSG in Ligue 1, Monaco and Mbappe would have missed out of the champions league.

By the way, the fact that Ajax couldn't beat PSV in both legs of their 1995/1996 league fixtures shoud let you know the quality of the dutch league then. Ronaldo was even the top goalscorer at 18 yrs.

The dutch league was no more a one team league than Ligue 1 is now, with PSG's dominance. Nigeria at some point had a player in almost all the teams in that league due to Westerhof connection, i suppose (Iroha, Rufai, Babangida, Finidi, Obiku, Kanu etc)

For those who like to compare quality of leagues based on what position victors in a continental match are in their local leagues, I hope the performance of Leicester in the champions league (3 points above the drop zone in its local league) exposes the folly in that line of thinking

Oshaniwa wasn't home based. He was playing in Israel. Only homebased players were Obiora Kanu, Oboabona, Mba, Reuben Gabriel, Agbim and Ejike.
Only Oboabona and Mba were regulars, while Ejike played just a few minutes against Mali. I wouldn't say we won because we took home based players to AFCON. While not taking anything away from Mba, it is hard to think we wouldnt have beaten Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso without his goals

TheGoodJoe:


You left a match with a huge smile on your face and a memory that will take two life times to forget.

Zidane vs Portugal (2000), Zidane vs Brazil (2006), Okocha vs Zimbabwe (2004), Kanu vs Cameroon (2004), Ronaldo vs Man U (2003), Nedved Vs Madrid (2003), Ronaldinho vs Chelsea (2005), Ronaldinho vs Milan (2005), Rivaldo vs Valencia (2001), Rivaldo Vs Man U(1999)...

I will never forget those individual performances

While I won't go as far as saying that CR7 cant do what Zidane used to do, watching Zidane's exploits in Euro 2000 (especially vs portugal) and his display against Brazil in '06 makes it difficult for me to say Messi and CR7 would have dominated this much in his era. Even Zidane didn't dominate at his peak as players like Figo, Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Henry also held sway


https://youtu.be/ywkMlK89Ibk