SPORTS STARS WHO MADE 2009 TWINKLE

For many Nigerian sports lovers, the year 2009 can better be described as a bitter sweet one. A mixed grill of excellence and mediocrity, then excellence again, that some wonder why we find it so difficult to be consistent and stay on top all the time. The same could not be said of international sports, as many of the top dogs stayed focused and on top of their sport through out the year. Not even the adultery scandal that engulfed the hitherto serene life of golf legend Tiger Woods could take anything away from the twinkling sports stars of 2009. We take a cursory look at 10 of such memorable stars of the passing year.

SHUAIBU
AMODU The Super Eagles coach has come to personify the Nigerian national team as much as he does controversy. His fourth coming as national team handler is still a subject of debate several months after he has settled down into his job. He has always managed to wriggle through but at what price to Nigerian football? His return started quite smoothly as
he easily won all the games in the first round of the qualifiers for the Angola 2010 Nations Cup and SA 2010 World Cup, after a tough battle with fans favourite Samson Siasia for the Super
Eagles job. Then trouble brewed with the start of the second and final round of qualifiers with the game in Maputo, Mozambique as the sign-post. The Eagles wobbled to a goalless draw and incensed fans renewed their call for Amodu’s ouster, especially as the team was playing so poorly, looking like a collection of soulless soccer stars. It went on like that but the Nigeria Football Federation, chose to, according to its President Sanni Lulu Abdulahi, ‘swim or sink with Amodu’. It was a close call, they almost sank with him! Only Mother Luck came to our rescue. And so, with Amodu’s Eagles, far from super, fumbling to three draws and three wins, Nigeria beat Tunisia to the sole ticket for the group for the 2010 Mundial, the first to be hosted on African soil. And the final scenes of this drama that had Nigerian hearts in their mouths played out on the final day of the qualifiers as Nigeria beat Kenya in Nairobi and Mozambique beat Tunisia in Maputo. Amodu’s job is saved in 2009 and he now lives to fight on other days in 2010.

OSAZE ODEMWENGIE
When African Independent Television (AIT), instituted its maiden Nigerian Sports Awards, the station’s sport’s belle, Aisha Falode, told the media that the Footballer Of Th e Year Award, was going to be the highlight of the awards night that held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja. Looking at the performances of Nigerian players at their clubs and national level, many concluded that the best among them in the last year was Osaze Odemwengie. Even when the awards were thrown open for the public to make their choices, Osaze came out tops, dazzling the fi rst runner up with digits organisers were too embarrassed to announce at the venue of the event. Born of a Russian mother and a Nigerian father, Odemwengie has become the metaphor for the much talked about Nigerian spirit that has been lacking in the national teams in recent years. Skillful, purpose driven and disciplined, Osaze represents that new spirit that young and upcoming Nigerian players must copy from, if they hope to advance their profession and he must be applauded for his contribution to Nigeria’s now famous qualifi cation for SA 2010.

BLACK SATTELITES OF GHANA
Just across the West of Nigerian border aft er Benin Republic, which many regard as a State in Nigeria, is Ghana and there is no need to bore readers with the legendary rivalry between both countries in sports. Any trophy Nigeria wins, Ghana will most likely target it just to ‘equalise’ with her foes and vice versa. Nigeria has played in two fi nals of the World Youth Championship for U-20 players with no success. Th ese were at Saudi ’89 and Netherlands 2005. Ghana had done same before Egypt 2009 WYC, from where they have now emerged the fi rst African team to win the championship. Th eir victims were world famous Brazil U-20 national team. Th e world was shocked but Nigerians, although jubilant that an African team won the championship, are nevertheless unhappy that the team was not Nigeria. Even more troubling is that that victors are our eternal rivals Ghana. Trust us, we will have a go at winning the next World Youth Championship in two years time. Just to underscore the point that if Ghana can win it, Nigeria can too, with better results. Meanwhile, all hail the Black Sattelites who were part of the grooves of sports in 2009.

SWISS U-17 TEAM
That Nigeria has won the U-17 World Cup trophy thrice at China ’85, Japan ’93 and Korea 2007 is a fact, but that it hosted the same competition in 2009 and were subdued in the final by, wait for it, Switzerland, is what many soccer pundits are still coming to terms with. Nigeria was not the only victim of the Swiss football savvy young lads propelled by a Tunisian immigrant named Nassim Ben Khalifa. So effective was the Swiss starlet that Brazil, Germany Spain and Italy also fell to the Swiss power at Nigeria 2009. Soccer followers will hail the Swiss side for their uncommon spirit in challenging the world soccer powers and taking all of them to the cleaners by coming away with the Nigeria 2009 trophy. The world must watch out for these lads come Brazil 2014.

KLITSCHKO BROTHERS
Call the Klitschko brothers, Vladimir and Vitali, the modern day wonders of professional heavyweight boxing and only a few will fault you. Between the duo they are holding on to three of the four major heavyweight belts in the boxing world and their opponents, including the man they call the Nigerian Nightmare Samuel Peters, have been able to do nothing to stop them. In fact, Peters, was so humiliated in losing his World Boxing Council Belt to the elder Klitschko, that the world started having a second thought about addressing him as the most likely individual that will unify the heavyweight titles of the world. The Iron Fist’, as the elder Klitschko is called, has become more of a boxing phenomenon than anything else and despite the recent resurgence of Samuel Peters, many still don’t see a capable foe for the brothers come 2010