Sports
NFF Okays Super Eagles For US Invitational Tournament
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in Abuja announced the participation of the Super Eagles in an eight–nation invitational tournament in the U.S. in February 2011.
Dr Sanusi Mohammed, NFF’s Assistant General Secretary (Competitions), told newsmen that the tournament tagged “2011 Green Soccer Bowl Tournament’’ will hold from February 12 to February 20.
The competition is being organised by the U.S. Presidents’ Day Celebration Soccer Invitational Tournament Foundation.
“The tournament will involve teams from the African, European and Asian continents and Nigeria has been drawn in Group A with Poland, Malaysia and Iraq.
“The organisers have been in touch with us for some months now and they are requesting for either our team A or B.
“But, we feel it is a good avenue to expose the locally–based players and an opportunity for the players to show what they can do.
“Therefore it is a worthwhile invitational tournament,’’ Mohammed said.
Our correspondent reports that three teams from Africa, two from Europe and three from Asia will participate in the competition, with Group B having African champions Egypt, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya and Bahrain.
The tournament will be staged at the Ford Field Stadium in Detroit, Michigan State and the PHP Stadium in Dallas, Texas State.
Mohammed listed the tournament’s benefits to the participating teams to include the opportunity to try and develop players from their local leagues in an international match.
“This is a good benefit, instead of relying on players playing professionally abroad all the time,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, Mano Menezes, a specialist in leading big clubs out of the doldrums but little-known outside his own country, became the coach of Brazil on Saturday when he accepted an offer from the five-times world champions.
The 48-year-old, currently coach of Corinthians, confirmed he had said yes to the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), which had been turned down by Muricy Ramalho the day before after his club refused to release him.
“For the whole of Brazil, I say that I officially accept the invitation,” Menezes told a newsmen at a conference.
Menezes, who replaces Dunga in the hot seat, will have the huge task of trying to rebuild Brazil’s national team.
The team had been discredited after their quarter-final World Cup exit against Netherlands three weeks ago, and win a sixth world title when they host the 2014 World Cup.
Winning their own World Cup is seen as an obligation by Brazil’s 190 million inhabitants.
With Brazil’s failure to win on home soil in 1950 still being mentioned regularly, the pressure on Menezes and his team will be greater than ever.
Menezes, 48, made his name in 2005 when he led former South American champions Gremio out of the second division.
In an extraordinary decisive game, Gremio had four players sent off, survived a penalty miss by opponents Nautico and then snatched a goal to win 1-0 and clinch promotion.
Two years later, he took them to the final of the Libertadores Cup, the South American equivalent of the Champions League.
He then joined Corinthians, another hugely popular team, and led them out of the second division in 2008.
Since then, his side have won the Copa Brasil and signed former Brazil World Cup winners Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor