Sports
Flying Eagles Arrive In Lodz For Senegal, Today
The delegation of Nigeria’s U20 team arrived in the city of Lodz on Saturday afternoon, ahead of today’s FIFA U20 World Cup Round of 16 clash with fellow African flagbearers, Senegal.
Players and officials left their Qubus Hotel in Bielsko-Biala after breakfast and arrived in Poland’s third largest city just in time for lunch at the Hotel Ambassador Premium.
Nigeria finished third in Group D and only qualified as one of the best four third-place finishers in the six groups, while Senegal, Africa’s vice champions, finished at the top of Group A after two wins and a draw.
The seven-time African champions are yet to truly impress in Poland since their opening day 4-0 lashing of Qatar in Tychy, with goals from Maxwell Effiom, Henry Offia, Ayotomiwa Dele-Bashiru and Aliu Salawudeen.
A 0-2 loss to USA and 1-1 draw with Ukraine, both in Bielsko-Biala, meant the Flying Eagles had to sneak into the knockout rounds, but the spirit in camp is high following qualification, and the prospect of squaring up to another African team appears to be engendering unspoken steel determination in the playing body.
Nicknamed ‘The Promised Land’, Lodz however does not hold much promise for the African army, as this early knockout round confrontation between Nigeria and Senegal, and the fact that South Africa’s Amajita are already back in Johannesburg following group stage elimination, means depleted African presence going forward. The other African team, Mali, will have to battle Argentina at the same stage tomorrow evening.
Half of the Round of 16 fixtures are all-Confederation clashes. Apart from Nigeria/Senegal, South American representatives Uruguay and Ecuador are up against each other, as Asians Japan and South korea, and European teams Italy and Poland.
The 18,000 –capacity Stadion Widzewa, where the Flying Eagles tackle the Junior Elephants of Teranga on Monday evening from 7.30pm, will also host the Final match on 15th June.
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