I welcome you to Sports Arena, where, as the name implies, we give you news, opinions and in-depth analysis of various sport events, locally, nationally and internationally.
However, in this maiden edition, we shall focus on the greatest soccer fiesta in on the globe, the World Cup coming up this year.
From June 14 to July 16, a total of 31 countries are expected to join host country, Russia to trade tackles in the 21st edition of the FIFA World Cup competition which started in the South American country of Uruguay in 1930 with 13 nations.
Our country Nigeria has been drawn in Group D alongside two-time champions, Argentina, Croatia and debutants, Iceland.
From the pedigree and records o Nigeria\’s opponents, bookmakers tip Argentina and Croatia to advance to the second round from the group.
However, we all know that \’crazy\’ results get recorded in football. Nigeria\’s first match on Saturday June 16 is against Croatia, one of the countries that emerged out of the ashes of Josip Bros Tito\’s Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, and in their maiden appearance at France 98 emerged the 2nd runners-up.
The second match on Friday June 22 is against Iceland who are making their first appearance at tge World Cup while the Super Eagles square up to Argentina on Tuesday June 26 in our last group match.
We have met only Argentina out of our three opponents 8 times, winning 2 friendlies, drawing one confederation cup, losing one friendly and 4 World cup matches.
Many, including Yours Sincerely, opined that our best was at USA 94, managed by Dutchman Clemence Westerhof and skippered by late Stephen Keshi. That team was formidable, coming from being frezh African Champions at Tunisia 94. We got to the knockout stage, aiming for the quarters only to lose our one goal advantage to Italy who beat us 2-1 due to our inexperience at the highest global stage in the senior category. We had earlier however showed our prowess at the FIFA age grade competition, having won the maiden FIFA Kodak U-16 in China in 1985.
We haven\’t gotten past the group stages in the four world cup editions we\’ve qualified for after USA 94.
We were at France 98, South Korea/Japan 2002, South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014.
Left to me, I haven\’t seen anything to suggest Nigeria will match the USA 94 record of second round talk less of making it to the quarters.
As a Nigerian, I will be very happy if we advance to the quarter finals but I am not that optimistic that the Rohr boys will be able to stand the heat of Argentina and Croatia at the group stage but I pray I\’m proved wrong.
All said and done, there seems to be a dark cloud over Russia 2018 and that is the threat of boycott by six countries viz: Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Poland and Iceland because of their opposition to some actions of the Russian government. Many English fans too support boycott of the world cup.
Also, FIFA is contemplating banning Russia because of racism against black players who come there to play UEFA matches.
I however learnt that underground efforts are being made to have a full house in Russia come mid-June. It is hoped that sports will prevail over sports in this, but can it?
Let\’s keep our fingers crossed to see how many of the 31 countries will make it to the 88 year old soccer competition.
See you next week.
