@Talon 30 March 2022 more from that month

When The Best Team Loses At some point, you just have to start thinking that maybe it's a curse, maybe someone somewhere is doing some occultic stuffs to keep you from progressing. This is not a thought I hold of myself or any other individual, but about the Nigeria national male football team nicknamed 'Super Eagles'. Nigeria as a country is known to be blessed with all sorts of resources. Some of the most known of these include Crude oil, gold, precious stones, limestone, minerals, even diamonds. It's also known for its vast amount of fertile land that could support such level of agriculture that it could potentially feed the whole of West Africa and beyond. What people don't know is that all of these things won't make the top three most important blessings that has been endowed on this country by God (or nature, depending on your religious status). The three most important things Nigeria is blessed with are it's human resources, perseverance and hardiness. Nigeria as a country boast a population of more than 200million people, and majority of these 200million people are youth; healthy agile youths. In the face of difficulty, an average Nigeria can persevere until the situation improves. Go to any country or county or city, you'll find a small Nigerian community at least, almost like we can survive anywhere. These abundance of human resources is seen in the exploits and achievements of Nigeria's who live in other countries. One area where this has been most clear is in the area of sports, especially football. Some of the best players in Europe's biggest leagues are Nigerians, doing exploits week in, week out for their club; something that all of a sudden becomes a impossible when they have to play for the National team. I'm writing this article out of the frustration I felt while watching Nigeria-Ghana match yesterday. By the end of the match, I couldn't hide my disappointment. For a team of such calibre of players to lose to a mediocre team like Ghana is really baffling and shameful. We have a team where almost all of them. When I watched Nigeria playing today, I realised that the problem with the poor results the Super Eagles have been producing these past years was not really a coach problem. Nigeria has had to change coaches so much in the past few years and the result have not be any different. By head to head comparisons, we ought to be the better team, by comparison of individual players in their preferred positions head to head, you realise that we are by far the better team. We even played the better football today, but somehow we lost to a side who could only garner 38% ball position. We came close so many time, so many close call. **Conclusion** This match has made me come to the conclusion that the real problem with the Nigeria national team is the player and their lack of desire to win. Until that mentality is removed from the team, I don't see them getting any better, no matter the coach's tactics.