Football Nigeria -- Eagles Etcetera

Most Nigerians agree that the 1994 World Cup team may be the country's best. It remains the baseline by which every other Nigeria team is measured. Thus, the greatness of the 2018 team will be determined by how well it compares to 1994. In this piece, I look at several indices of comparison that include average age of the starting team, record in the World Cup qualifiers, average number of appearances for team starters, disciplinary record, and then a qualitative evaluation of teams. Quantitative Comparison Statistically, the 2018 team may be slightly better than the heralded 1994 version. This sounds like sacrilege. However, the numbers tell the tale. Of course, the 2018 team has not achieved any thing yet compared to the 1994 team that was ranked #5 in the world and was two minutes from a World Cup quarter final place. The 2018 team completed the World Cup qualifiers without a loss, never mind the technical loss assigned within FIFA boardroom over the use of an ineligi...

There is a widely-held belief that players who choose to go through a Nigerian Football Academy, compared to those who play in Nigeria's top elite league, end up making it to teams in the Top Five European Leagues i.e. England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France. If you closely watch transfer news from Nigeria, then this belief is more real than fiction. However, one question that is rarely asked is: Why is that the case? This is an important question for several reasons. (1) Nigerian players state often that their ultimate career goal is to play in Europe, (2) Transferring to a Top 5 European league symbolizes that the transferee is a better football player, (3) Transferring to a Top 5 European league increases opportunity for a better pay day and (4) Top 5 European League brings higher profile and visibility back in Nigeria. Thus, it is important to investigate and possibly confirm the above phenomenon. Method & Limitations We use Nigerian news coverage of football labo...

Last month , I began the blog by rating the percentage of likelihood of players making the Nigerian squad to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.  _____________________________________________________________________ The categories are as follows: Highly Probable++ (80-100% likelihood), Possible+ (50-79%), Questionable?  (40-59%) and Doubtful?? (39% or less). Comments follow each category. _____________________________________________________________________ Two international friendlies this month have unscrambled the categorization of players that was made in February. Some players have now moved up and some have gone down. This up and down movement is expected until the final 23 is picked in June. By this monthly process, it is highly probable that a large percentage of the 23 that would be named for the World Cup in Russia will be predictable. March Squad Status of Players The status of players this month, after the friendly internationals in Wroclaw and London, is pre...