The 20th Edition of the African cup of Nations kicked off on Saturday, 21st January, 2012, without soccer giant Nigeria in participation, because the country failed to qualify for the tournament.
As expected, host nation, Equatorial Guinea, slugged it out with Libya. Both countries played on equal strength, leaving the host beating Libya by a lone goal, courtesy of home advantage well utilized.
Other matches took place on the opening day while Day 2, saw Didier Drogba, winning for Cote D’voire in their match with Sudan. Angola later in the second day won its match.
Big countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Egypt, did not qualify for the African world cup. This makes this edition of the African cup of Nations to have low followership as many sports analysts are not truly happy for these interesting football playing countries not being in the nations cup.
Nigeria in particular would have qualified if not for the complacent nature of the football administrators of the country.
It is even better that the country did not qualify for the nation’s cup, instead of qualifying, only to be disgraced at the nation’s cup proper. This is because Nigeria has individual good players but not a team.
It takes a team to win matches. Though Nigeria is blessed, football talents wise, the country has not gotten a team of recent and could not prosecute any international match with winning mentality.
There is no doubt that if Nigeria could enhance her football talents coupled with good administrative plans, surely Nigeria would be a big threat to any soccer playing nation in the globe.
No coach in the world, not even the wave making coaches in the English premiership could have delivered Nigeria out of where she is, without putting structures in place. This is what basically, the problem of Nigeria.
Lack of knowing this fact had made the country’s administrators sack many innocent coaches who have attempted coaching the country with the view of shaping the country’s fortune in the international football scene. Latest victim was Coach Samson Siasia. ###
Allanso Janthan Allanso
