Happy new year! I hope you had a nice holidays? And you are looking forward to a great year. 2012 started on a good note. When Nigerian fans were not actually expecting anything from CAF Award, Austin Jay Jay Okocha was crowned “Legend of African football and Perpetua Nkwocha crowned again African Female Player of the year 2011.
I think most Nigerian fans would want to quickly forget the 2011 football season and move on. It’s understandable why NFF or organizations like Glo, MTN, PEPSI... were not motivated to organize Nigeria football award for 2011 season. But I feel honor should be given to player like Ahmed Musa. He was a lone star that shone in the darkest night. His contributions to his his former team VVV. Venlo and the various category of the national team was phenomenal. In fact, he broke another record as one player that played so well for under 21, under 23, and the Super Eagles at the same year. I feel he should have been crowned Nigeria football player of the year 2011.
Well, 2012 would have just been a great year for Nigeria fans had Super Eagles qualified for African Nations cup. The media rassmatazz would have reached the climax by now. It would have also been a kind of paliative for the removal of Petroleum subsidy in Nigeria. There is nothing to look forward to this year, since the Dream team did not qualify for the London Olympics too.
The Super Eagles will be playing the second fiddle – something the fans are not use to. They will only be helping other national teams to build up for the African nations cup and the London Olympics. The chief coach Stephen Keshi will be using those friendly games to start rebuilding the team. Well, Super Eagles will also be playing some preliminary qualifying games with smaller footballing countries like Burundi, Zimbabwe...
Never the less, we hope Dolphin FC and SunShine FC will be able to put smile on the faces of Nigerian fans. I don’t know if they have the capacity to do well during CAF champions league 2012. I hope so!
Recent trends however, seems to indicate that Heartland FC of Owerri maybe the team that may eventually make Nigerians proud during CAF Cup competition 2012. The reason being that Imo state government, the financiers of Heartland FC, now has a football loving governor, Rochas Okorocha. And just few months in office, he had revived and motivated the team to win both the Federations Cup and Super Cup.
Most good players in Nigeria Premier League have all headed to Owerri. Most of them are likely to sign for Heartland in the coming season. The governor has promise to pay players their sign on fees even before the league begins.
We at Cheer on Nigeria’ are also enthusiatic to help make 2012 football season more exciting for Nigerian fans. We’ll return back to you some beautiful memories and give you tips on how we can move Nigeria football forward.
We also encourage you to read our sister blog posts at www.ifootball4life.blogspot.com to get “how to” and “Guides “ on how to live a more rewarding football life in 2012.
Benson Chukwueke
