Nigerian Football
HOW EMENALO MISSED MARADONA’S LAST INTERNATIONAL SHIRT
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
Man of the moment, Nigeria’s Michael Emenalo whose Monday resignation had been the most trending sports news on twitter, could have also been in possession of what could have been a memorable archival material, the last shirt worn by the legendary Diego Maradona in his very last international match, in fact, and his last competitive match.
Emenalo, a 1985 player of Enugu Rangers, only played for Nigeria 14 times and was one of the late inclusions to the famed Class of 1994 Super Eagles. That was 13 years before he joined Chelsea as an opposition scout under Avram Grant. He later rose along the ladder to become a member of the football club’s board and one of Roman Abramovich’s most trusted lieutenants.
Sports Village Square recalls a story Emenalo told The Telegraph in UK some years back. He told the story of that June 25, 1994 match in which a Diego Maradona-inspired Argentina scored two goals in two successive free kicks by Claudio Caniggia to cancel the earlier lead Nigeria had had through Samson Siasia.
- Michael Emenalo tailing the legendary Diego Maradona during a USA ’94 World Cup match played at Foxborough Stadium at the outskirt of Boston.
Argentina won 2-1. Emenalo had not realised at the time, but as he sat on a plastic chair outside the drug testing room in Massachusetts’ Foxborough Stadium – still in his kit, and totally exhausted – Diego Maradona was trying to tell him something.
Both had been randomly selected for the mandatory dope test. Hear Emenalo: “I was sat in the corridor with him and he [Maradona] was making jokes about it”.
“He had his shirt in his hand and he was looking at me. This was Maradona! I was just thinking about how I had a poor game. I was thinking I wasn’t going to play the next game against Greece.
“All the time he was looking at me. It wasn’t until I went home I thought, ‘He wanted to swap shirts’. Later when I got married I told my wife and she laughed. Can you imagine that last Argentina shirt? With Maradona’s sweat on it? I could have had that shirt in my hand!”
Emenalo was one of the Nigerian defenders that made life unbearable for Maradona in the match. While Emenalo passed his test. Maradona failed!
Maradona tested positive for ephedrine, was sent home from the 1994 World Cup finals in disgrace and never played for Argentina again. That sweaty blue and white shirt would have been Maradona’s last national team jersey, and quite a memento.
The Aba-born player-turned technical director, Sports Village Square gathered, regretted missing the opportunity.
Emenalo had an unusual playing career, which took in stints at the Belgian club now known as FC Brussels; Germany’s Eintracht Trier; Notts County; San Jose Clash; Lleida in Spain and finally Maccabi Tel Aviv where he played under Avram Grant.
He spent 85 days at Notts County in the 1994-1995 season, having been encouraged to play in England by international team-mate John Chiedozie. During that time he worked under Howard Kendall and Steve Nicol.
Emenalo joined County late in his career. “I grew up watching English football. I watched the Match of the Day which we got two weeks late! I always wanted to play in England.”
At Lleida he was managed by Juande Ramos, who approached him about joining him at Tottenham Hotspur in 2007 and Emenalo was close to doing so until Ramos procrastinated and Grant made him an offer to come to Chelsea. He began as a scout and was briefly an assistant to Carlo Ancelotti before becoming technical director in 2011.
Nigerian champions, Enugu Rangers have been beaten 4-3 by visiting Kano Pillars in the Match Day 7 of the Nigeria Premier Football League.
The visitors went into the lead in 15th minute when Rabiu Ali converted a penalty kick. They doubled the lead in the 28th minute through Zulkifilu Rabiu before Rabiu Ali extended the lead to 3-0 in the 37th minute after converting another penalty kick.
The game turned into a nightmare for Rangers as Ahmed Musa made it 4-0 in the first minute of the added time.
Rangers began a fight back in the opening minutes of the second half as Isaac Saviour pulled a goal back in the 47th minute. Twelve minute later he scored a second goal to reduce the tally to 4-2. Emmanuel Silas Nenrot made the score line a more respectable for Rangers when he scored a third goal in the added time.
The miserable run of Akwa United and Ikorodu City came to an end after six games in the Nigerian Premier League this season. Both teams were initially glued at the bottom of the league table.
They now got respite as Akwa United beat Kano Pillar by 2-0 while Ikorodu City even did what could be considered an upset, beating Bendel Insurance 3-0.
Remo Stars bounced back to the top of the log after a 3-0 defeat of Nasarawa United. Shooting Stars are yet to get their rhythm this season, playing a barren draw with Enyimba in Ibadan.
Kwara United who got their first full points of the season last week after a 1-0 defeat of Remo Stars could not consolidate as they were beaten 1-0 by Abia Warriors.
Heartland under Emmanuel Amuneke are gradually recovering as they got a valuable away draw against El-Kanemi Warriors.
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
It is 75 years since Nigeria’s national football team first played an international match. That was on 8 October 1949 when the first set of Nigeria’s assembly on their return voyage stopped over in Freetown and engaged Sierra Leone in an international football match. Nigeria won 2-0, setting a chain of positive results on 8 October.
The country never lost any competitive duel on that date. More significantly, the Super Eagles first qualified for the World Cup on an 8 October date.
That was in 1993 when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Algeria in the quest for USA ‘94 World Cup.
Nigeria became the first English-speaking African country to qualify for the World Cup. Another significance of the October 8 match at the July 5 Stadium, Algiers is that Nigeria were unbeaten for the first time by Algeria at home.
The only deviation from the 8 October Magic was in 2015 when Nigeria lost 2-0 to Congo in a friendly match.
Twenty-six years after Nigeria’s debut international match, one of Africa’s biggest football nations, Egypt fell to the October 8 magic, losing 4-0 to Nigeria in the last stage of the triangular World Cup qualifying series for Argentina ’78.
Up till October 15, 2013, when Ghana beat Egypt 6-1 in Kumasi, the October 8, 1977 duel with Nigeria remained Egypt’s biggest loss in a World Cup qualifying match.
Before the 1977 duel, Nigeria in 1963 played a friendly match with Liberia in Monrovia. The October 8 magic was active, even in an away match. Nigeria drew 2-2 in their very first encounter with Liberia. It was shortly after the team had, through a protest, upturned a victory by Guinea to pick Nigeria’s very first African Nations’ Cup ticket.
Little wonder then that when FIFA suspended Nigeria in 2010, the world governing body provisionally lifted the ban on October 8!
Nigeria on 8 October
- 1949 – Freetown (Friendly) Sierra Leone 0-2 Nigeria
- 1963 – Monrovia (Friendly) Liberia 2-2 Nigeria
- 1977 – Lagos (World Cup qualifier) Nigeria 4-0 Egypt
- 1993 – Algiers (World Cup qualifier) Algeria 1-1 Nigeria… qualify for USA ‘94.
- 2005 – Abuja (World Cup qualifier) Nigeria 5-1 Zimbabwe
- 2010 – FIFA, in apparent respect to the 8 October magic, provisionally lifted a ban imposed on Nigeria.
- 2011 – Abuja (African Nations Cup qualifier) Nigeria 2-2 Guinea. Although undefeated, Nigeria failed to make it to the 2012 African Nations Cup.
- 2015 – D.R. Congo beat Nigeria 2-0 in Visé, Belgium. The ‘October 8 Magic’ is finally broken.
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