SUPER Eagles midfielder Wilfred Ndidi continued his brilliant form for Leicester City yesterday as they defeated Plymouth 4-0 to stay on top of the English Championship table.

Ndidi rounded off the scoring in the 55th minute to take his tally this season to two goals and four assists in 16 Championship appearances as the Foxes seek a quick return to the Premier League.

His fellow Nigeria international Kelechi Iheanacho was not in the matchday squad.

In Italy, Ademola Lookman was the hero for Atalanta in their 3-2 win over AC Milan in Bergamo.

The Nigeria forward scored two goals in the 38th and 55th minutes to give Atalanta the lead twice but each time they were pegged back, first by Olivier Giroud’s strike and later by Luka Jovic in the 80th minute.

Lookman was taken off in the 82nd minute and his replacement Aleksei Miranchuk set up fellow substitute Luis Muriel for a sensational back-heeled goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

Former Everton star Lookman has now registered six goals and two assists in 15 Serie A appearances this season for seventh-placed Atalanta.

In the Scottish Premiership, Super Eagles striker Cyriel Dessers was also on the score sheet yesterday as Rangers defeated Dundee United 3-1 at Ibrox.

The 29-year-old, who celebrated his birthday on Friday, marked the occasion with the opening goal as Rangers stay five points behind leaders Celtic.

Super Eagles defender Leon Balogun was also in Rangers’ starting line-up, the 35-year-old centre-back making his seventh Premiership appearance of the season.

There were also goals for Chidera Ejuke in Belgium and Moses Usor in Austria yesterday.

Ejuke scored his second goal in eight Belgian Pro League appearances as Royal Antwerp defeated Cercle Brugge 3-1, while Usor also netted his second Austrian Bundesliga goal in 13 games in their 3-1 victory at Lustenau.

In France, Moses Simon featured for Nantes for all 90 minutes but they were beaten 2-1 by Ligue 1 champions and leaders Paris Saint-Germain at Parc des Princes.

[NaijaTimes]

Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola has said only one team can ‘fail’ to win the Premier League title, as they are judged by higher standards than their rivals.

Guardiola stated this ahead of Sunday’s trip to Luton Town.

City are looking to end a four-match winless run, a situation Guardiola has never experienced as a coach.

Guardiola feels the reaction to their form is over the top.

He told reporters: “What they demand of us, they didn’t demand of our friends – at all.

“There is only one team that is going to ‘fail’ to win the Premier League, that is us. For the rest, [winning] it is a big success. Any team.

“In the end, if they don’t win – Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, everyone – it is normal because City should win.”

[DailyPost]

Who is the greatest right-full back in the history of Nigerian football?

About a year ago, I asked football fans the question above, and conducted a small poll to get an answer. The response from Chief Dele Adetiba, a veteran journalist, broadcaster and Guru of Advertising, who has seen most of Nigeria’s generation of footballers since the 1950s to date, was not surprising. It coincided with that of a few others who watched Tony ‘Parkins’ Igwe play in the 1960s in Nigerian football.

For about 5 years, between 1966 and 1972, ‘World 2’, as Tony was nicknamed at the time by adoring football fans, could not be touched. He was way ahead of his generation in technique and skills as a defender.

Tony owned the right full-back position. He introduced to football at the time, a defensive style of play that flourishes in modern football today as the wing-back. Tony was the first player to consistently do the overlapping run, an elegant gallop down the right flank like a traditional winger, joining the attack and delivering beautiful pin-point, final crosses to strikers (Amusa Shittu, Sunny Oyarekhua and Peter Anieke) in the box. It was a style that was decades ahead of the time. He made it popular, doing it so well and owning the ‘patent’ with a nickname ‘World 2’, the best number 2 in the world!

He was a member of the 2nd All-Africa Games Gold-winning Green Eagles in 1972. He was selected amongst the African XI team after the Games. He was also a member of the first Nigerian national team to qualify and to participate in the Olympic Games. That was in Mexico in 1968.

Tony Igwe relocated to the United States of America soon after the 2nd All-African Games. He was one of the first set of Nigerian athletes to do so for the sake of securing an education whilst still playing the beautiful game.

Since then, some 50 years ago, he may have visited Nigeria only once or twice. He eventually became an American citizen, and has had nothing to do with Nigerian football. It is not surprising that in my survey, no one under the age of 50 even knew who he was.

Sadly, of the 22 players that made up the 1972 national team only 7 are still alive. Yet, Tony, one of the ‘oldest’ in the squad at the time, is still some years away from turning 80. They were all very young and died young.

I was a toddler growing up in Jos, when Tony Igwe and his colleagues, all secondary school football players, took Nigerian football by storm. The political crisis in Nigeria of 1966, the pogrom, truncated their schooling in Jos and romance with the great Jos township team that was on the verge of winning that year’s FA Cup in Lagos. Tony and a few of his team mates at the Academy Institute of Commerce in Jos, never returned to the city. They remained in Lagos to birth one of the most flamboyant, most followed and most successful privately-owned clubs in Nigeria’s history – Stationary Stores FC. This was the only club in Nigeria’s football history to have produced 9 of the 11 members of the starting line-up of the Green Eagles at a particular time.

Through the decades I kept in touch with several of that national team members, including Tony Igwe.

Last week, we spoke again, and I reminded him that he was one of a few remaining members of a great generation of Eagles, and that it is important he speaks to Nigerians and tells his story, if only for the sake of posterity and history.

He agreed. So, for the first time in decades, World 2 will be joining me on the set of ‘90 minutes with Mathematical’ this Saturday morning on Eagle7 Sports Radio, 103.7 FM Abeokuta, for an exclusive conversation.

NIPOGA Games and I

With more Polytechnics and Colleges of Technology than Universities in Nigeria, NIPOGA Games are probably the biggest sports competition in the country.

The Games started during my final year at The Polytechnic Ibadan in 1976. As the Director of Sports of the Student Union Government at institution, I was a major driver of the establishment of the Games and the hosting of the very first event. I actually moved the motion for The Polytechnic Ibadan to host the first Games at a meeting in Benin a year before.

Although I have only remotely followed the Games from a distance since then, I have been aware of its expansion and its contributions (not in any big way, though) to the production of national athletes in various sports and development of sports in Nigeria.

Last week, I was brought back into the fold by the Rector of the Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, Bldr. Professor Emmanuel Achuenu, whose Polytechnic hosts the 22nd edition of the NIPOGA Games titled NIPOGA OGWUASHI-UKU 2024, next year.

The rector decided to bring me out of the woodwork, and installed me as Ambassador of the 2024 Games to be held at the Polytechnic in the headquarters of the Aniocha-South Local Government Area of Delta State, some 15 minutes’ drive from Asaba, the Delta State Capital. I am just imagining what transformation that would bring to the institution as well as that relatively quiet part of Delta State when the Games are over.

To play the role of Ambassador is a responsibility that I accepted with great humility and pride because it brings me back to my primary educational constituency with very fond memories of my years participating in the NATS games that metamorphosed into NIPOGA.

By the way, I am a very proud graduate of Polytechnic education. I deliberately made the choice to attend a technical institution after my secondary school because the message then was that the future belonged to those with skills and not certificates.

I was a first-class student out of secondary school. After my OND, I was admitted into Imperial College in London, West Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Michigan State University, Detroit, Michigan. The introduction of the Higher National Diploma program in 1974, touted as equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree at the time, provided me a window to remain and play my football in Nigeria (I was an emerging star in Africa) whilst receiving a practical education in an institution that had the best mechanical engineering workshop and foundry in West Africa. The Polytechnic was an initial attraction for thousands of other young Nigerians at the time.

Today, many regret taking that route in their educational pursuit. In ignorance and nonsensical poor judgement Nigeria is paying a huge price for relegating middle-level manpower development through Polytechnic education, and stigmatising the Diplomas. The graduates are made to walk and work with an inferiority complex and without a spring of pride in their feet.

Nigeria is suffering from it. Its productive sector remains unproductive without the essential manpower that would have driven it and engaged the vast army of young boys and girls that now find solace in entrepreneurial skills development outside of the Polytechnics and Colleges of Technology.

It is common sense that middle-level manpower development is still where the future lies, with practical skills, particularly in science and technology, the engine room of productivity without which Nigeria would never join the club of developed nations.

For sure, with pride, I shall be playing a big role in NIPOGA 2024 as an Ambassador.

The Field Marshall’ comes to Lagos.

Next Wednesday in Lagos, ‘Chairman’, Christian Chukwu, MFR, one of the greatest legends of Nigerian football, former Captain and former Manager of the national, team, comes into Lagos for the presentation of his autobiographical book, ‘The Field Marshal’.

This will take place at the Main Auditorium of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Kofo Abayomi Street, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Beyond the launch, the event will provide all those that have not being to see and experience the Air Peace-sponsored ‘NIIA Wall of Fame’ the opportunity to do so and behold that truly beautiful national monument.

It is an event not to be missed. I shall be there to honour my friend and captain.

FIFA on Saturday confirmed that three bids to host the Women’s World Cup in 2027 had been lodged “across three confederations” before the bidding process closed.

From Europe comes a joint bid between Belgium, Netherlands and Germany while Mexico and the United States also teamed up as they submitted another joint bid just before Friday’s deadline.

Brazil is the only country with a sole bid.

“FIFA will now conduct a thorough evaluation process, including on-site inspection visits that are due to get underway in February 2024, before publishing its findings in a bid evaluation report in May 2024,” the organisation said in a statement.

The final decision will be made through an open vote at the next FIFA Congress in Bangkok on May 17, 2024.

South Africa had planned to bid but withdrew last month with their federation preferring “to present a well-prepared bid for 2031”.

The United States hosted the 1999 and 2003 World Cups on its own, and Germany hosted the 2011 event.

The last Women’s World Cup was co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand in July and August this year, with Spain beating England in the final.

Rafael Nadal said on Thursday he could not confirm that 2024 would be his final season before retirement, saying it “makes no sense” to set a deadline for the end of his career.

The 22-time Grand Slam champion will make his return from a near year-long injury absence at the Australian Open warm-up event in Brisbane next month.

The 37-year-old had previously suggested he would hang up his racquet at the end of 2024.

“There’s every chance that it’s going to be my last year and I’m going to enjoy the tournaments in that way,” Nadal said in a video posted on his social media accounts.

[DailyTrust]

The Executive Board of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN, the body responsible for all decisions related to the sport of athletics, as well as for the  conduct and management of the sport and its disciplines, will hold a crucial meeting on Sunday December 10.

The meeting will deliberate on a number of issues with the ratification of the 2024 programme of activities and consideration of the report of an audit  committee which looked into the finances of the federation.

With the African Games coming up between March 8 and 23, the federation will deliberate on how to prepare the athletics team to the Games.

In 2019, the Nigerian track and field team won the athletics event at the Games with a total of 23 medals made up of 10 gold, seven silver and six bronze  medals ahead of Kenya who won a total of 20 medals (10 gold, seven silver and three bronze medals)

The Executive Board will also deliberate on the report of the audit committee it set up via a resolution of its board meeting of September 16, 2023.

The Executive Board will consider the recommendations of the committee and decide on the next step(s) to be taken.

[TheNation]

Asisat Oshoala is on track to secure her record-extending sixth CAF Women's Player of the Year award, according to Daily Post.

Oshoala was among the three players who made the final shortlist for the Women’s Player of the Year award, as announced by the Confederation of African Football on Thursday.

The Barcelona Femeni star became the first woman to claim the award for a record fifth time in 2022.

The 27-year-old played a key role in Barcelona Femeni’s UEFA Women’s Champions League success last season.

South Africa’s Thembi Klagtlana and Zambia’s Barbara Banda are the other players in contention for the award.

Klagtlana, who plays for the American side Racing Louisville Football Club, won the award in 2018.

The winner will be revealed at the CAF Awards Gala on Monday, December 11, 2023, at the Palais des Congrès, Movenpick, Marrakech, Morocco.

Nigeria forward Victor Osimhen has made the final three-man shortlist for the 2023 CAF Men’s Player of the Year.

CAF announced the final shortlist on its official X handle on Thursday.

Also up for the prestigious award are Morocco and Paris Saint-Germain defender Achraf Hakimi and Egypt and Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah.

Last year’s winner, Sadio Mane, failed to make the final shortlist.

Osimhen is the firm favourite to succeed the Senegalese.

The 24-year-old led Napoli to their first Serie A title in 33 years last season, scoring 26 goals.

The striker is looking to become the first Nigerian to win the award since Kanu Nwankwo was named the best player on the continent in 1999.

The winner will be revealed at the CAF Awards Gala on Monday, December 11, 2023, at the Palais des Congrès, Movenpick, Marrakech, Morocco.

The Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) has granted Egypt the right to host the 2027 African Games.

The Egyptian National Olympic Committee (ENOC) had sent a request to ANOCA, voicing interest in hosting the games.

Egypt’s successful bid highlights the nation’s established presence in hosting prestigious tournaments, having previously organised events like the 2021 World Handball Cup, Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2006 and 2019 as well as the U20 African Nations Cup in 2022, among others.

This is Egypt’s second time hosting the African Games, having hosted the continent in Cairo in 1991.

President of ANOCA, Mustafa Braff, formally notified the President of the Egyptian Olympic Committee, Engineer Hisham Hatab, acknowledging Egypt’s dedication and leadership through a formal letter, conveying the esteemed hosting right.

ANOCA expressed gratitude to Egypt and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for their contributions during important meetings.

With the spotlight on Egypt, the nation will prepare to host the 2027 African Games, showcasing its commitment to organising a successful event on the continental stage and contributing to the legacy of the African Games.

[Leadership]