By Ikeddy Isiguzo
THOUSANDS of people trooped out on last week Wednesday night expecting all their problems will be solved once they watched the Eagles play against Sierra Leone in Lagos. Their expectations failed woefully and the complaints have not ceased since then.

Why do people expect sports to solve all life’s problems, particularly in Nigeria where too many problems arise from the emptiness our leaders offer?

How did we become so deluded that we think that if education, water, electricity are not available, if the Eagles are playing, our country will be transported to the utopia, where all things good are possible?

Lagos has had its challenges with traffic. People wanted those challenges to vamoose because the Eagles were in town, live, with all their foreign skills to display. We forgot that some people’s idea of traffic management is to shut down whole sections of the city without considering the residents of those areas, and without notices diverting traffic from the closed roads.

Anyone who made it to the stadium after surmounting the traffic, arrived with heightened expectations from a team that flopped so badly at the 2010 World Cup that it will take a list of enchanting performances to win its followers back.

The crowd at the Teslim Balogun Stadium was a mixture of ardent Eagles critics, friends of Samson Siasia, who was on his first assignment since taking the job, and some who also came to see what this Siasia would do.

Lagos was also hosting the Eagles for the first time in seven years. There are several tales surrounding the absence of the Eagles from Lagos. One, the most famous, is that fans in Lagos are too critical of the team and that their upbraiding of the team affects its play.

Abuja was chosen as a haven for the team, away from the deprecation of Lagos.
The other, rarely told, is that Lagos had no facility where the Eagles could play. The National Stadium is a stadium by name. Its state is a disgrace to the legend surrounding its construction and the resources wasted in having it. The stadium cannot host anything and billions of Naira, would be required to improve it.

When Nigeria staged the controversial FIFA U_17 World Cup in 2009, Teslim Balogun Stadium came to the rescue for the Lagos centre. The National Stadium is in such bad shape that the government neither had the funds, nor time to fix it. There is no hope that it would be fixed soon.

Without a base in Lagos, and with a state government that until 29 May 2007 quarrelled with the federal government, there was no chance that Lagos would host the Eagles. The game that held in Lagos last week is a testimony to changes that have taken place between both governments.

The result that the fans craved for remains a mystery to me. Anyone reading the flood of condemnations of the Eagles would think the team lost the game. Is a 2_0 defeat not enough?

Did we think Sierra Leone came for humiliation? Exactly what did we want?

Some have spoken about the absence of a certain flow in the Eagles play. Others insist that without the idiosyncrasies of the referee the game could have been tougher for the Eagles. I hold no positions on both matters.

What I think has influenced the Nigerian mind is the undisputable use of the English Premiership as the standards for all football engagements. Any team that offers anything short of the standards of the English football is unworthy of the attention of our people.

They forget easily – the Eagles have been without action since last July when the World Cup ended, they are under a new coach who is trying to find his wings and there is tremendous pressure for performance.

When the competitive games start, we shall see whether we made the right choices of players and coach. I had always thought (belatedly some of you will say) that a Stephen Keshi_Samson Siasia combination was what the Eagles needed. Let us get back there before it is too late.

Heard Anything About Sports?

HAVE you heard any of the candidates say a word about sports? The campaigns have begun, words are flying around, some of them promises, others sheer abuse of each other, but none of the candidates has said a word about sports.

It says something about the unimportance of Nigerian youth and sports to our prospective leaders. I have listened intently to campaign speeches and the efforts to win votes for any hints that sports could be of any consideration for the coming governments.

The attitude–mostly indifference – to sports is formed at this stage. Governments that do not think much of sports, or consider issues around sports worthy of spaces in their manifestoes will not change when they are in office.

Now is the time for us to make those critical decisions with our votes. If sports is important to us, only candidates who will support sports should get our votes. It is not too late to get these candidates to see how important sports is to Nigerians and how they can use sports to develop Nigeria and Nigerians.

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