Thank God it’s weekend, as the saying goes.
With the week giving way to another weekend of football fiesta in leagues across the globe where Super Eagles eligible players will be looking to play the game of their lives, Afrofooty takes the opportunity to look back at 5 fascinating headlines made by Nigerian footballers in the past week.
Headlines:
1 No Favour from FIFA Ranking for the Super Eagles
The Super Eagles of Nigeria were 12 minutes away from recording an unbelievable 2:0 win against Ukraine in a friendly match on 10 September before blowing it away in 2 minutes of madness that all but impacted negatively in the FIFA rankings that was released this week.
Nigeria dropped one place from 33 to 34 in the world but stays as Africa’s 3rd place team.
As the match against Ukraine ended 2:2, Super Eagles fans are left wondering what could have been had Rohr’s questionable man-management skills not reared its head again.
2 Oshoala rose to the top literally: she became the Super Falcons Captain
Ahead upcoming Olympic football qualifiers, interim coach of the Super Falcons Christopher Danjuma installed Asisat Oshoala as the team captain.
The news was met with mixed reactions by fans as it wasn’t made by the team’s main coach Thomas Dennerby who is battling one or two issues with the football authorities.
Asked to confirm the news, spokesperson of the NFF, Ademola Olajire simply said:“Yes, she is now the new captain.”
3 Olayinka – Nigeria’s Unlikely Hero in the Champions League
With fans looking to the likes of established and emerging Super Eagles strikers like Osihmen, Onuachu and Emmanuel Dennis to hug the headlines in the week’s European Champions League fixtures, it was the rather infancied and uncapped Peter Olayinka who will write his name in the stars with his well taken goal against Inter Milan for Slavia Prague at the San Siro.
His goal in 63 minutes gave The Czech side the lead before Inter Milan equalised deep in stoppage time.
After the match, 23 year old Olayinka said: “San Siro is a fantastic stadium. When I was a child, I watched the stadium on TV and dreamed of one day scoring a goal there.
Now that has happened and it is an incredible feeling.”
4 Nigeria vs Brazil Friendly (13.10.19)
As if the euphoria of the Super Eagles’ September grade a friendly against high flying Ukraine was not enough, fans woke up to the news this week that Brazil had lined up Nigeria and Senegal for friendly matches in October.
Could it be true?
"We chose two of the best African teams because they are high level opponents," Brazil Football Confederation official Juninho Paulista said on their website regarding their choice of Nigeria and Senegal for the friendly.
Nigerian fans are in dreamland!
5 Ezenwa in Familiar Territory
Having been unable to upstage the Uzoho and Akpeyi in the main Super Eagles team, goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa was named in the homebased Super Eagles squad for up coming CHAN qualifier against Togo.
However, the Afcon 2019 Bronze Medallist still needs to try to displace Under 23 first choice goalkeeper Abubakar Adamu and Enyimba’s Theophilus Afelokhai.
On the competition facing all 3 goalkeepers, young Adamu said: Anybody who gets called to keep the match, I wish all the best.
If it’s me, I wish myself all the best, if it’s Theophilus or Ezenwa we are the same and I wish them all the best also.”