A Happy Easter to you all.
I pray that in the spirit of the resurrection, we find peace and happiness in the beginning of a new world and a new world order (my hopeful and prayerful prediction) after this Coronavirus pandemic.
Later today, I shall be posting the product of some calls that I made to some special persons on ‘football strikers’, the very best at national team level in the history of Nigerian football since Independence in 1960.
Until I started drawing up an elite list, I did not realise it that I was looking at a very small group indeed. I recalled quickly that scoring goals is the most difficult aspect of the ‘beautiful game’. Thats why those that have mastered the art, or act, are very few indeed in Nigeria’s football history.
I had to stand back and do a proper audit and analysis of the situation. The discovery is eye- opening.
Even I started out, and was originally invited to the Green Eagles, as a striker, that lone player upfront in the heart of opposing defenses trying to break through them by all means, fair or sometimes even foul, to score the all-important goals which separate a winner and a losing team.
I did not last long in that position (because Thompson Usiyan had it pocketed) before I was moved to the right flank. It was an advantage for me because i now started to score goals my goals from the flanks with the small experience I had as a striker.
I can now say with some pride that even as an average striker for a little part of my relatively short stay in the Green Eagles (a little less than 6 years), I became the highest goalscorer in Nigeria’s history until Rashidi Yekini came along, and, in 11 years, re-wrote that part of my humble but little acknowledged accomplishment.
So, for me, in 2020, to still hold the record of being the second highest goal scorer at national level, means clearly that Nigeria does NOT have a rich throve of exceptional strikers or goalscorers.
For the records only, I was an average striker. before I became a winger. Yet I was highest goalscorer in the Ibadan Football Association league for two seasons in the early 1970s; I scored 7 of the 16 goals in total that Shooting Stars FC scored to win the Africa Cup-winners Cup in 1976 (Moses Otoloron scored 8 of the goals); I was the joint highest goalscorer at the only two Africa Cup of Nations I attended in 1978 and 1980, (6 goals in all); and the highest goalscorer in the Nigerian League (the way it was run then in the late 1970s) for 2 seasons.
My percentage goalscoring average was almost 50, 1 goal in every 2 matches, with 23 goals in 47 Grade A international matches.
Statistically, that was phenomenal, yet, I know without being told, that in the school of scoring goals, I was really just an average striker during my career. I know what great strikers look like and play like – Teslim ‘Thunder’ Balogun, Amusa ‘Bulldozer’ Shittu, Sunny Oyarekhua, Thompson Usiyan, ‘Gangling’ Rashidi Yekini, ‘Papillo’ Kanu Nwankwo, Daniel ‘the Bull’ Amokachi, Jonathan Akpoborie, Olufemi Martins, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, and even Odion Ighalo.
The statistics of my goal-scoring merely speak to the dearth of great strikers that did not score many goals in the country’s history.
So what parameters would determine the choice of the player as unofficial ‘greatest striker in Nigeria’s football history’?
Another thing. At a stage during my career, between the exit of Thomson Usiyen in 1977 and the emergence of Rashidi Yekini in the mid 1980s as a full-fletched national striker, Nigeria was searching for, testing, experimenting and changing strikers like baby diapers. They came and went in a flurry – John Nwadioha, Christian Nwokocha, Emmanuel Obasuyi (Shakara), Emmanuel Osigwe (fofofo), Henry Ogboe, Ifeanyi Onyedika, and a few more.
It was so bad at a point that I was drafted back to the position a few times, did not live up to expectation and I got frustrated. It badly affected my captaincy.
It was partly for that reason also that Mudashiru Lawal was deployed as a point man upfront (as a decoy) in the final match of the 1980 Afcon in Lagos. Nigeria did not have the classic old tradition centre forward the country could call up.
To be a proper striker of the old-school, of a lone goalscorer up front, was a very difficult job. It took a special talent, physique and attitude to succeed as one.
So, who would be my respondents to make their personal choice of the greatest striker?
They must be reflective of several generations?
I found the new and exciting group.
But, first, i need to reiterate that this is not a contest, there are no polls to be conducted, no votes to be counted, no winner to be declared, no rewards to be shared. There is nothing but the expression of individual views, period!
Who are those that hate the sight of s great striker in the opposing team? Who are those that should know, the most, who the best strikers are?
Goalkeepers!
They will be my selectors.
I quickly draw up a list of a few former Green Eagles goalkeepers from the 1960s to the 2000s that I can reach.
I call them up to get their views. They are:
Amusa Adisa
Emmanuel Okala
Zion Ogunfeyimi
Peter Rufài
Ike Sorounmu
Joseph Dosu
I ask them to tell me the STRIKER that they would hypothetically not want to face in a football match.
That would be their choice of greatest Striker in Nigeria’s history.
Watch out for their responses on Operanews hub tomorrow. It is unmissable
