2022: Reflections on Nigeria Football, By Harry Awurumibe 

For most Nigerians  especially football followers, the year 2022 will be remembered with mixed feelings in many respects depending on how anyone is assessing it.

In keeping with the calendar of human progress, the year 2022 will yield place to the new year, 2023, in the Gregorian calendar hence it had had its time and now assumes its honoured place among the 2,021 years before it.

Definitely, there will be things to fondly remember of 2022 and there will be things that will force individuals to bite their fingernails and to imagine what could have been.

Infact, human history bids us to remember the good, the bad and the ugly hence it’s inevitable to look back to see how well or bad one have achieved or failed to achieve in the year under review.

However, the focus here will be on how well Nigeria performanced in international football especially in the African continent and world at large in the past 12 months.

But the year 2022 was thus no different from all the other years before it. It offered promises for individuals,  organisations and nations; and it saw those promises cynically broken by those who made them.

Specifically, those entrusted with the job of managing Nigeria’s football through the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) gave hope that Nigeria would qualify for the just concluded 2022 FIFA World Cup final in Qatar but that raised hope of, as we say in this country, better things to come, was dashed after the country’s senior men’s football team, Super Eagles failed to qualify for the global football fiesta.

The last qualifying round of matches pitched Nigeria and West African neighbours Ghana to fight for one of the tickets for Qatar 2022 but before the home and away matches in Kumasi and Abuja were played, NFF in December 2021 sacked Franco-German Technical Adviser, Gernot Rohr after his employers accused him of failure to enforce discipline in the team, adding that there were so many things not known to the public on the matter.

Thus NFF led by ex-President Amaju Melvin Pinnick, a FIFA Council Member and top CAF official later  replaced the 68-year-old coach with a consortium of coaches headed by NFF Technical Director, Augustine Eguavoen to take the Super Eagles to the January’s African Cup of Nations (AFCON) held in Cameroon on temporary basis.

But after Nigeria crashed out of the competition in the Round of 16, the federation pressed the panic botton by inviting applications for qualified coaches for the Super Eagles job. A certain Portuguese Coach Jose Peseiro was said to have been recommended by Jose Morinho hence he was chosen to replace Rohr after the AFCON.

It was not to be as Eguavoen and his assistants who led Super Eagles to AFCON in Cameroon were asked to continue on the job just as ex-international and former FIFA U-17 World Cup- winning Head Coach Emmanuel Amuneke was added to the crew.

The gamble of appointing caretaker manager for the Super Eagles ahead of the two-legged Qatar 2022 play-off matches against Ghana Black Stars boomeranged as Ghana eliminated Nigeria right in front of over hundred thousand fans that turned out to cheer the Eagles at Moshood Abiola National Stadium Abuja on the night.

A 1-1 scoreline in Abuja on the back of a goalless draw earlier in the week at Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi gifted Ghana an away goal advantage and a ticket for 2022 FIFA World Cup final in Qatar.

This is even as Ghana had earlier sacked their own Head Coach  Milovan Rajevac in February 2022. He was initially replaced with Otto Addo, an ex-international as interim boss of Black Stars but was later given a deal until the end of December 2022 after he led Ghana to eliminate Super Eagles and stop Nigeria from qualifying for Qatar 2022.

The inability of Nigeria to qualify for Qatar 2022 came with huge disappointment, outcry and anguish not only to Super Eagles players, some of whom will not play in the FIFA World Cup final again before they end their careers, but the coaching staff and Nigerian fans.

Also, aside the huge revenues from FIFA which the NFF lost for Super Eagles failure to qualify for the mundial, other football stakeholders in the country especially the sporting press and the media houses lost huge revenues that could have come from advertising firms.

It is more painful that Nigerian sports journalists including the writer who had earlier secured sponsorship to travel to Qatar to cover the FIFA World Cup final lost such opportunities as the sponsors tacitly cancelled the agreements already reached to sponsor journalists to Qatar.

Some of their excuses were that Nigeria did not qualify to participate in the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and nobody can fault such excuses because the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the global football fiesta.

Meanwhile, before the FIFA World Cup final which held in Qatar from November 20 to December 18, 2022, Nigeria’s  three women’s football teams- Flamingos (U-17), Falconets (U-20) and the Super Falcons also participated in the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup; FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup and 2022 Women’s African Cup of Nations (WAFCON) respectively.

Indeed, the year 2022 started for Nigeria’s senior women’s football team (Super Falcons) with the 14th edition of the biennial African international women’s football tournament WAFCON organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and hosted by Morocco from 2 to 23 July 2022.

The competition which has been dominated by Nigeria since it debuted in 1998 in Nigeria as host,  and the Super Falcons winning it for an unprecedented nine times plus being champions of Africa in 1991 and 1995 respectively was to turn to a nightmare for Nigeria last July in Morocco.

The West Africans went to Morocco as WAFCON defending champions but returned to Abuja after the competition empty-handed as the country did not only lose her crown but also her position as the topmost African women’s football powerhouse.

The Super Falcons handled by a American gaffer, Randy Waldrum who is the current Head Coach of University of Pittsburgh, USA  Women’s Soccer Team, did not only play badly in WAFCON, the team was outclassed by the Banyana Banyana of South Africa thus suffered a 2-1 loss in the group stage while Nigeria lost 5-4 (penalties) to Morocco in the semi final. She lost the 3rd place match by a lone goal to Zambia.

Nigeria’s overall performance and results in Morocco were bitter pills to swallow for Nigerians who are used to seeing their team return from competition with medals but the worst was yet to come as the coach and his players continued their downward slide in the months following their worst outing in Morocco.

The Waldrum-led side had started the year on bad note as Nigeria

 lost to Canada in Vancouver earlier in the year as the Olympic Champions, Canada in April 3, 2022 defeated the Super Falcons 2-0, in the first of two-legged friendly game played in Vancouver. The second match ended 2-2.

Also, immediately after the WAFCON in Morocco, Super Falcons of Nigeri in

September 7, 2022, lost their second international friendly match against the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) 2-1. Nigeria had lost

the first of the twin friendly between the two nations with the Team USA thrashing the Super Falcons 4-0 at Children’s Mercy Park, Kansas City three days earlier.

Yet, Nigeria’s Super Falcons were beaten 2-0 by their Japanese counterpart in another international friendly game played at the Noevir Stadium in Kobe, Japan on  October 6, 2022. The defeat in Kobe was the Super Falcons’ seventh loss in 2022 from 13 games.

Waldrum’s team came into the game in Japan on the back of a 6-1 aggregate defeat to the United States in a double-header clash in September as mentioned earlier.

Also, Nigeria lost thrice at the 2022 WAFCON in Morocco to South Africa in the group stage, Morroco in the semi-final, and Zambia in the 3rd place match. For the first time in the recent memory, Nigeria failed to win a medal in the biannual competition.

Next stop for the Super Falcons is the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup final billed for Australia and New Zealand in the summer but there is no indication so far to suggest that Nigeria will perform better than she did in the 2019 edition in France where Nigeria managed to reach the Round of 16.

Another engagement of Nigeria was the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup final which took place in  Costa Rica from August 10 to 28, 2022. Sadly, the Falconets’ 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica campaign ended in chaos as disgusting images emerged after the team crashed out of the event.

It will be noted here that Nigeria has never missed a FIFA U-20 Women’s Championship since the competition began as an U19 Championship in Canada 20 years ago. They have been two-time runner-ups in 2010 and 2014.

The Nigerian girls performed credibly well during the tournament till they fell 2-0 to the Dutch to end their participation abruptly and with Nigerians applauding their efforts, images of them sleeping on the chairs and bare flooring at Istanbul Airport in Turkey flooded social media and sparked a wave of nationwide anger in the country.

Nevertheless, NFF explained that the  airline that was scheduled to transport them to Abuja from Turkey had already departed due to a flight delay in Colombia where the airline that would have picked them delayed hence they arrived Turkey late and they were forced to endure an annoying 24-hour stopover at Istanbul Airport before finally flying back to Abuja.

However, the only silver lining in the year 2022, was the 4th place finish of Nigeria’s U-17 women’s football team, Flamingos in the 2022 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup final in India which took place from October 11 to  30.

The Bankole Olowookere-tutored Flamingos  of Nigeria who lost their opening match 1-2 in favour of Germany even after scoring first in the crunchy game  bounced back to reckoning in the subsequent matches.

But Nigeria went goals-crazy by thrashing next opponents, New Zealand 4-0 with goals from Bello, Usani, Afolabi and  Etim, and also defeated Chile 2-1 with goals from Mosaku and  Emmanuel in the second and last

group matches respectively.

Yet, Nigerian young ladies did the impossible in the quarter final tie by edging the United States of America (USA) 4-3 on penalties after both tied at 1-1 after regulation time. This feat earned the Flamingos commendations even from the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari.

The hard-fighting Nigeria was to lose 6-5 to Colombia in the semi final match after score stood at 0-0 at full time hence another penalty shoot-out was employed to determine the finalist.

Nigeria was to rely on mother luck in the 3rd place match to win the tie.This is even as Nigeria and Germany met the second time and this time around Nigeria defeated Germany 3-2 on penalties after both tied played out 3-3 in the regulation time.

Opeyemi Ajakaiye, Omowunmi Bello and Grace Etim scored during the open play to help Nigeria tie the match before prevailing in the shoot out.

In summary, the year 2022 faithfully followed nature’s script as some could count it as lucky year and will remember it as the year that was, others will like to forget everything about it because of the unfulfilled expectations especially as Nigeria failed to qualify for the 2022  FIFA World Cup in Qatar, a situation which brought sadness to the hearts of millions of football fans in the country.

May 2023 not follow in the footsteps of 2022 and may Nigeria football teams, men and women, not fail to qualify for continental and global football competitions in 2023.

Happy New Year, Folks.

By Harry Awurumibe, Public Affairs Analyst