Guardian

No Nigerian expected a different result. No Nigerian entertained even the faintest possibility of an upset in Nairobi. Many warned but very few expected anything but the defeat that the Super Eagles handed their Kenyan opponents last Wednesday in the rarified atmosphere of Kenya.

Anything else would have been contrary to the records, the history and the established tradition of the confrontations between the Harambee Stars and the Super Eagles. Add to that the fact that the Super Eagles are the current undisputed champions of African football following their emphatic and well-deserved victory at the African Cup of Nations in South Africa only five months ago. Not much could have changed in the five months since then to alter the historical antecedents, as well as the future course of the records between Kenya and Nigeria in football. The difference between them is clear!

I did not watch the match between the Harambee Stars and the Super Eagles of last Wednesday.  The match was not shown to Nigerians on television, a disturbing current trend that defies logic and understanding for the ordinary man. As has been discoursed in passing in certain for a, there is a disagreement about the cost of marketing the television rights of the World Cup matches to Nigerian media practitioners. So, the people continue to suffer from not watching their beloved team play in the most important football events in the world.  Something needs be done.  Forgive me for the digression!

So, Nigerians were almost arrogant in their expectations of the result of that match. True to expectations, as reports on radio and on the Internet revealed, the Nigerian team, for the duration of the match, was never under any threat of losing the match.

Indeed, many now say that the one-goal victory of the Super Eagles was flattering to the Kenyans. The score line could have been a lot higher - anything from four goals upwards in favour of the Eagles if all the chances that came to them had been converted.

Without breaking a sweat, without even playing brilliantly, but simply just doing enough to keep the Kenyans in check and at bay, the Eagles maintained their unbroken record of never having lost to Kenya in any competitive football match in football annals.

With a team missing several of the key players that won the African championship early this year, Stephen Keshi still assembled a squad that made the Harambee Stars look very ordinary and secured an almost certain passage for Nigeria to Rio 2014, baring any catastrophe in the remaining easy matches.

The pedestrian performance and poor result (1-1) recorded in Calabar, Nigeria, when both teams met in their first encounter had no bearing. Stephen Keshi’s confidence and calmness in the face of a perceived threat astounded everyone and infected his players. This was justified with a relatively easy win in Nairobi with the Eagles rising magnificently to the challenge and leaving the Kenyans in a daze, wondering what had hit them.  The match was sealed with a deserved late goal scored by Ahmed Musa.

Keshi’s simple strategies for the match worked superbly.

The first was a gamble that paid off – a friendly international match against a very strong opposition a few days to a crucial match. A loss could have dampened the morale and confidence of the young Eagles squad, and possibly precipitated a backlash in Kenya a few days later.

Instead, the team’s spirit and confidence were bolstered by a great result achieved in that difficult match. The Eagles were forced to a 2-2 draw by highly rated Mexico in the international match played in the United States of America. The Nigerian players, thereafter, proceeded to Kenya on a high, and boasted that no records or myths would be broken, and that history would only repeat itself! They were proved right!

The second strategy involved how to combat the effect of high altitude. The Nigerian team arrived Nairobi only one day before the match. Getting fully acclimatized to an environment such as this required a continuous stay of several days. The Nigerian team did not have such luxury of time. It was, therefore, a test of the long-held theory that ‘no-acclimatization’ is the antidote to the debilitating, asphyxiating effect of high altitude! Before any damage could be done by the thin air to their bodies the Nigerian players zoomed in, played their match and zoomed out of Nairobi! It worked!

Finally, Keshi assembled a team of athletes - runners and fighters - reflective of football of the next generation, as was demonstrated by the two German clubs that played the finals of the European Club championships a few weeks ago.

Time was when football was played by 11 individual artists. With some advancement came the passing game and some organizational play. Then came the era of systems and patterns of play – diamond shape, space marking, man-to-man marking, 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 3-5-2, etc, followed by the concept of Total Football with emphasis on the versatility of players and quick interchange of positions on the field.

The last decade has been dominated by the evolution of FC Barcelona and Tiki Taka – a blend of exquisite skills, short passing, endless running, mass defending and seamless movements. Recently, we had a sneak preview of the probable next advancement in football play.

The football of the future belongs to the athlete-footballer. The level of fitness and skills that will be required to play successfully at the highest level would demand that players are not only highly skillful and disciplined, but must, particularly, be extremely fit, endowed with the strength, stamina, speed and versatility to play in more than one position, to run endlessly for at 1000 kilometres per hour for 90 minutes defending and attacking, and to cover every inch of grass!

Bayern Munich FC used it effectively to alter the equilibrium of world football. The new emerging Super Eagles are made of that stuff. What we saw in Nairobi provides an indication of that.

Now look closely at the present Nigerian team. As individual players they do not match the depth in flair, skills and ability of the players that ended with Jay Jay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Taribo West, and co. But put together as a team, as a unit, I see the outlines of a team that would be stronger and even more successful. I do not know if Stephen Keshi himself is aware of what his methods are producing, but Nigeria presents the perfect environment for the emergence of players with the high levels I talked about. Endowed with power, strength, speed, ‘hunger’, and skills hewn on the difficult grounds around the country, the new Eagles are blending into a team of super-fit players.

Meanwhile, there is ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ in Kenya as their agony continues. The Harambee Stars are still looking for what would help them break the jinx that continues to haunt them – the jinx that has become a myth, a record, a tradition that has sustained for decades and still stands today. No Kenyan national team has ever defeated the Super Eagles in any competitive match anywhere, in history!  That jinx lives on…unfortunately!