Are Super Eagles truly jinxed?
The way the Super Eagles scored their lone goal during Saturday’s victory over Rwanda left me with what I believe is a plausible, though controversial and disputable, conclusion – the team has been under a curse all this while!I’m not a traditionalist nor a spiritualist, but I’ve learnt over time that many things that happen in the physical, especially mysterious ones, have been influenced either positively or negatively by supernatural forces. I’ve also seen a lot of football at all levels to know that external forces beyond comprehension or face value do largely control the game.
That, to me, explains why as mighty a team as our dear Super Eagles drew three matches at home in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. Amazing is a word that is not even good enough to explain how ‘a whole’ Nigeria would fail to win such crucial home matches against lowly Lesotho and Zimbabwe, as well as one of our biggest eternal rivals, South Africa.It was not for want of trying, nor due to a lack of support, nor because of a lack of talent, but victory just refused to come to the Eagles at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo.
The worst of them all was against Zimbabwe, when we scored very late in the game, but a mistake by two of our best players in midfield and defence led to a rather uncanny equaliser by the visitors from East Africa – and our qualification hope that had been boosted with victory away to Rwanda suddenly went back to a tight rope.The result against Zimbabwe led some analysts to suggest that Nigeria’s home fixtures should be moved away from The Nest of Champions, where the Eagles had also lost their last match of this year’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Rwanda earlier.
The saving grace back then was that it was an inconsequential fixture, as we had already qualified with a game to spare. Yet, many carefully whispered rumours spread across the nation, asking: Is Godswill Akpabio International Stadium jinxed?However, the scenario was different this past Saturday at the same venue, and the stakes were higher. It was a must-win game for the Eagles. Otherwise, their 2026 World Cup dreams would be over.Sadly, there was an alarming forecast from my crystal ball (which has an uncanny track record of correctly predicting results ahead of kick-off many times). For Saturday’s game, it showed ‘1-1’ as the result in Uyo.
Yet I knew, if this game were to end that way, we should jolly well forget about USA/Canada/Mexico 2026; and that’s where the efficacy of prayers came to bear.It began with one of my sons, who quickly fired back, “God forbid!” when I told him I foresaw that game ending in a 1-1 draw. I guess many other Nigerians also prayed for a change of fortune for the Eagles and that ‘the jinx in Uyo’ should be broken this time around.But some other factors still had to play out. What about the dramatis personae themselves – the players, coaches, and backroom staff? Did they believe in the effects of supernatural influences during football matches, or did they feel that their talents and efforts alone would help them win?
That, to me, explains why our best player had to bow out early with injury, why our second-best attacker was off form, why our captain had to start from the bench and the most unexpected lad (Tolu Arokodare) eventually ‘bundled home’ the lone goal that was enough for three points.A deeply religious person would remember expressions like ‘it’s not by power, not by might’ and ‘the battle is not for the swiftest’ in times like these. Favour and grace can also give you results that you so desperately desire.So, Saturday’s victory was not because we were good enough, but because God intervened to quell an esoteric force that had been unleashed on The Nest of Champions. It was God’s intervention that gave us victory with one of the ‘freakiest’ goals ever scored in Nigeria, nay ever seen in the entire world of football.
That goal was a jinx-breaker!So, the question now arises – who cursed the Super Eagles and why? I don’t have a foolproof answer to that, but my closest inference is that a chain of issues could have led to a coagulation of negative forces (bad luck) in the spiritual realm against the current board of the Nigeria Football Federation… not just the Super Eagles per se.Let’s take our minds back to the sack of a certain expatriate tactician a few weeks before the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
A man who qualified us for two major competitions with matches to spare (no need for mathematical calculations) was thrown out because we felt he was not good enough. The man who replaced him won three straight matches in the group stage, and the next verdict was, “Didn’t we tell you that Oyibo was not good enough?” Then, karma took over, and we fell to Tunisia in the most bizarre manner – our keeper could not stop a shot from distance, and it went under his arms into the net.
We failed to see ‘the spiritual angle’ to that defeat, plus a similar goal our team conceded against Ghana in a crucial World Cup final qualifier that we only had to win 1-0 at home in Abuja after drawing the first leg away goalless in Accra. Very mysterious was the way Thomas Partey’s shot from distance again went under our second keeper’s arms.First, it was Maduka Okoye and then Francis Uzoho. So they both became scapegoats, but no one thought about the expression ‘pride goes before a fall,’ especially regarding people in the current executive committee of the NFF, who kept boasting at the beginning of their tenure, “We’ll show that other man who was before us that we know how to run football better than him.”
They then started dancing chairs in the appointment of coaches, with their thinking caps running from Portugal to Germany and Brazil, only to end in Mali; forgetting that Nigerians who feel they deserve the job better than a foreigner were pushed aside in the process of handing the plum job to one expatriate after the other. Do you think they’ll wish the man in charge well? Probably that’s also why we fumbled at the recent Championship of African Nations (CHAN 2024).Sadly, no one remembers in times like these that each human being has an avenger that fights battles for him or her spiritually – even if the person does not ask for such support.
So, the avengers of our sacked and abused coaches (expatriate and indigenous), as well as maligned administrators, surely had to fight back at a point, especially when the real actors in the team (players and coaches) are not spiritually strong.That’s why the Super Falcons of 2023 lost their Women’s Africa Cup of Nations semi-final against Morocco in mysterious circumstances (with two red cards along the way) but miraculously romped to the trophy this year against the same opponent … when they had as their captain a born-again Christian with a Muslim name.
In the final, her spiritual strength helped us get a penalty that would have been overlooked on any other day, after which a similar decision that should have been given to the opposition was cancelled. Yet, the opponent happened to be the host country in a back-to-back WAFCON final! If that wasn’t a miracle, what else would be?Having stated so much, the bottom line now is for Nigeria’s players, coaches, officials, fans, analysts and journalists to admit that there’s still a need for deep remorse, pleading and restitution for us to gain further grace, favour and spiritual intervention that would help our team to defeat South Africa on Tuesday.
Let the players work hard, the coach should think better, and administrators make atonement, while all fans pray harder … maybe the jinx that was cracked on Saturday would eventually be broken on Tuesday. Amen!!
