BY: Tonebsky Nesta
The recent International friendly between the new look Super Eagles of Nigeria and their Sierra-Leonean counterpart at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos may have come ad gone but the real joy is not the narrow 2:1 victory, rather the opening of a new era in the history of our senior national team.
Despite the 3 minutes booing by Lagos fans, majority of soccer loving Nigerians, including sports journalists, ex Internationals, coaches and football technocrats agreed without any doubt that promising discoveries of soccer talents were made by the Coach Samson Siasia led technical crew after over a decade of drab football exhibited by our Senior National team. The fear of lack of worthy replacements for Austin Okocha and Kanu Nwankwo, two of Nigeria’s most gifted footballers in modern history was put to rest following the commanding midfield display of Inter Milan prodigy, Joel Obi. His mesmerizing dribbles, deft touches as well as pin point passes for the period he was on the pitch took the minds of millions of soccer loving Nigerians off the dirty politics of the FA and the Nation in general.
Another player that easily caught the eye is the pacy Ahmed Musa.
His electrifying and blistering pace as well as enviable skill brings back fond memories of the likes of Finidi George, Emmanuel Amuneke, Tijani Babangida as well as Victor Ikpeba when the quartet were at the height of their career. To imagine that Ahmed Musa only left our domestic league just last year for European adventure as well as the instant impact Warri Wolves striker, Ekhigo Ehiosun made by slotting in the second goal attests to the endless calls being made for players in our domestic league to be given a chance in our senor National team.
This is not forgetting the performance of another home boy, Chibuzor Okoronkwo. Any football technocrat and observer will note that it was the few old Eagles that don our National colours on the night that struggled to shine. No doubt, Coach Samson Siasia has not just proven that he has the magic wand for uncovering great Nigerian talents scattered within and outside the shores of Nigeria, but the Bayelsa born tactician and Ex Eagles International has once again shown Nigerians that he possess the technical ability to lead the Super Eagles to where it rightly belong among football greats if given more time.
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