Coaches Moris Coreman and Austin Eguavoen had finished speaking when I entered the dressing room. Felix Anyansi-Agwu took the floor, addressing the players, pointing out some flaws after summarising what the coaches had said. He charged on the players to cancel the 1-0 lead, maintaining that it was doable if they got it right.
Enyimba
Felix impressed me with his understanding of the game. Among other things, he said “this game is within our reach but we are letting it slip. Ahly are not as fantastic as we thought. This game is not as fast and explosive as we thought. So, why can’t we take over the game, charge on them, outrun them on the counter and make attempts at goal? For the whole of the first half, we did take a shot at goal, so how can we score? Sometimes, we make good runs but we don’t end them well. There’s no need to impress anybody by dribbling when it is not necessary. This game is redeemable.”
Enyimba really played better in the second half. But for the typical way Nigerians play, the story would have, probably, been different. There were many passes behind when they needed to put pressure on the Egyptians. They could only do so by moving forward, playing direct football especially as they were already 1-0 down. Steve Worgu, the diminutive player Ahly dreaded, ran on them with the ball but hardly created openings. Ezenwa Otorogu did not have a good game and did not make enough runs. The long balls to Worgu did not help and Enyimba did not realise they needed to change.
But on a general note, they played better than they did in Aba where the match ended goalless. And that was the story of Enyimba’s exit from the Champions League this year. It was sad but the trip also showed other sides of Enyimba. I saw the ingenuity of Felix Anyansi-Agwu in planning and executing match and I wished we had people like him in the Nigeria Football Federation. I also had fun, enjoying some jokes from the likes of Uba, Odoemena and Vincent Nwogu, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sports. It was not all the football hard way in Egypt, the ancient country where civilisation started. It was fun visiting the pyramids with Odoemena, the Secretary of Enyimba and Mr. Nwogu. The pyramids are one of the seven wonders of the world.
I rate them the greatest of all the wonders of the world. I came to this conclusion after our guide, Michael explained a few things as we toured the place, riding on horses and really wondering about the wonderful pyramids.
“These pyramids were built 5,000 years ago,” Mike started shortly after showing us where the Sahara Desert started. It was our take-off point. The other time I visited Egypt, I saw where the famous Mount Sinai started.
Touring the wide and long distance on the desert where the pyramids are located was awesome adventure. Sometimes, my horse reacted as if he was angry with me. I feared I would hit the ground and shouted, raising alarm for a possible rescue. Nwogu, and Odoemena at different times had problems on their horses too but Mike always calmed us down, assuring that nothing would happen to us. Mike continued his story:
“These pyramids are over 150 metres and each took 30 years to build. 100,000 workers built each pyramid. They were all killed after erecting each one, so the method they applied remains a mystery till date. The king at the time, ordered their execution. This was a time there was no technology. You can see the heavy stones used in building these pyramids.
The first pyramid was ordered built by the king then. The pyramid was the tomb of the king. His son became king after his reign and also ordered another pyramid to be built to be his tomb at death. The third was the grandson who also became king. That is the rich history of the ancient times. There are seven pyramids here but there are other ones in other cities,” Mike continued. He has been working as a guide in the pyramids for 25 years. He pointed out where the workers were buried after execution. The idea of killing them was for no living being to know the technology involved so that it would not be passed to generations.
“The remains of the kings have been taken to the museum. When Mohammed Ali became king hundreds of years after, he scrapped parts of the first pyramid and used the stones from there to build a mosque here in Cairo. You can see how big these stones are. How did they carry them that high to make them such solid structures? It is a wonder of the world. Nobody knows.”
He pointed at that of Sphinx who was the guard to the king. The head, molded and sitting on top of his tomb, was partly disfigured by Napoleon Bonaparte when he conquered Europe and parts of the world during the 1789 revolution. As we rounded off the tour, Mike asked me one question. “Do you have a wife or girlfriend? I was wondering why he asked and before I could answer, he said, “there’s a place I will show you to relax when we leave here. It is a place you can appreciate because of what it offers. There are shops to buy things for romance, good perfumes, original perfumes squeezed from herbs and flowers.” We ended up in one of the shops and the owner was another character. Interestingly, he follows football globally.
When he learnt we were part of the Enyimba delegation, he gave out the football in him. Odoemena had a spell drinking Egyptian tea that he offered. The tea is said to enhance performance. But I can vouch that he drank for the fun of it for he had no job to do in his hotel room. However, he searched for the tea to buy and take home. It tasted so good that he wanted to take it home and share with his wife. Nice man. The owner of the shop spoke football. He heard that Ahly wanted to buy Worgu and he warned us this way: “Hassan Hamdi is President of Ahly.
He works with coach Jose well and they make Ahly a prison to players. They sign many good players and refuse to sell those they are not using. Nadre El-Said from Qatar has not played for two years but they would never let him go. They are always happy to keep players even if such players don’t kick ball for years. Ahly is not the right place for a player who wants bright future in other places. They don’t care what they pay. They have money. They will tell you to sit down and don’t worry for they are not complaining. Yasir Mohammed is facing the same fate and Ahmed Hassan they bought 5 million pounds now doesn’t know what a match looks like.”
When we thought he was done, he started the business of selling his products. There were perfumes for every occasion and another that could enhance performance. Simply allow few drops into water in the bathtub and bath in it, soaking yourself in there for few minutes. The person will smell romantic and the muscles will work better according to this man. “If the woman robs it on the breasts and lower parts of the body, she would feel great sensation and what a feeling it is for a couple to use this,” he said, adding “these perfumes are oil and lasts until you wash the clothe.”
We felt we had enough of his salesmanship and left. Did we buy any stuff there? Egypt makes money from tourism. The horde of visitors to the pyramid is a huge source of revenue. We arrived at one of the antiquity shops where history of the ancient people, gods and practices were relayed to us as they demonstrated how papers were produced from papyrus five thousand years ago. Egypt is really the cradle of civilisation. As we talked about ancient times and how wicked and brutal kings were, we wondered why they commanded 100 per cent loyalty from their people.
“Why didn’t some of them escape? How would they build something for 30 years only to be killed after the hard work of ferrying stones from far places to the desert and raising them to the sky? How can a king subject his people to this cruelty and genocide just to build his tomb? Before getting there, we were talking about our own old times. It was interesting touring with Odoemena and Nwogu. As we cracked jokes over some old models of cars that you still find in Egypt, Odoemena recalled that only one man had a car in his village in the 60s. He was the first man to own a car in his village in Umuahia.
“He was one of the aides of Michael Okpara, the Premier of Eastern Region. Everybody knew when he was going to work and returning. It was such that his trips to office and back became a time factor in the village. Somebody could say ‘I’ll visit at the time De Marshal usually returns.’
In Igbo, De means senior. Same as Egbon in Yoruba or generally Oga. The man was known as Marshal and he commanded kingly respect for his car. Villagers walked out to wave him as he drove in the car. It was an honour to join in washing his car or fetching water for that purpose, Odoemena recalled We also recalled the story of Chief Nwakpuda in Umuahia. The well-respected chief had protested that government destroyed part of his farm to build rail line that passed from Enugu, through Umuahia to Port Harcourt.
He thought a train could apply brake like a car and had mounted the rail line to stop a moving train from trespassing on his land at the time. He was crushed to death.
“We recently met one of the descendants of Chief Nwakpuda,” recalled Nwogu. He regretted what happened but was defending the man’s action as bravery. We all laughed and I agreed that, at the time, it could truly be some bravery to try to stop a moving train if the mechanism was likened to that of a car.
We were all creating fun. It was not funny, however, before the match. There was war at the pre-match meeting where Ahly officials were lamenting that they could not trace Enyimba. Anyansi-Agwu had moved the team to another hotel and asked other officials to take over the official hotel for the team. That pained Ahly so much that they made it a security issue, even pressing match commissioner, Slim Aloulou to compel Enyimba to disclose where the players were.
Even the bus they provided for the players was used by officials too. Felix hired another bus. Aloulou and Ahly ruled that only the bus attached to the team would be allowed into the stadium and that there would be no security for Enyimba, insisting Ahly and the police cannot be held responsible if anything happened to Eyimba players. Felix would not yield ground and had to fire back, saying “if all these are threats to us, we will see how they would play out.”
On the eve of the match, we found birds’ feathers stuck in one part of the field. It was sign of fetish practices. It was for same that Felix provided different logistics for which Eguavoen expressed concern over the huge cost of executing Champions League matches. His approach in training was brilliant for the match. If only the players implemented 70 per cent of the plan, it could have been a different story. But they really lifted their game, played well and can be commended for a brave outing even if it was not like that of Chief Nwakpuda.
Write Comment
Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article.
Personal verbal attacks will be deleted.
Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed.
Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button.
Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
Copy This Idea and Start Making N650,000+ monthly beginning from today!
This simple business has made me N650,00+
in one month by learning where to find unique
information and making it available to
particular groups of people.
Easy,Simple, Quick Setup.
Completely legitimate.No scam!
Get report for FREE Here!
FxPro.com - Trade Forex Like a Pro
Flexible leverage up to 1:500
Low spreads from 1.8 pips www.FxPro.com
MyNaijaNews
Naija entertainment, lifestyle, sports, music reviews, fashion, technology, mobile phone reviews, books, classified ads, greeting cards, etc....It's your content. go get it......
Comments (1)
