Odegbami recalls ‘do or die’ spiritual team needs

I’m writing this on Thursday.
I am pregnant with the previews of the Super Eagles’ last two extremely crucial matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying series, the first of which will take place tomorrow, Friday night.

There is a dilemma. I have to submit my script today to be posted and read on Saturday morning.

Therefore, I will have to play ‘prophet’ and write (and be right) anticipating what I think will happen, otherwise I will end up after the game looking like a fool or an expert when whatever happens in the game on Friday night happens, and my audience reads about it on Saturday morning in the papers, or even listens to me on my radio show on Eagle7 Sports Radio 103.7 FM Abeokuta. The fact is that the Nigerian Super Eagles are walking a very tight rope.

Lesotho clash: a ‘neutral ground’ advantage

Normally, the match against Lesotho should not be difficult for the Eagles, considering that fate has gifted them the opportunity to play an extremely crucial away match on a “neutral” ground: South Africa! Lesotho does not have a home ground good enough for the “size” of the match.

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Therefore, on paper, this morning Nigerians should be celebrating a match that should be a walk in the park for the Super Eagles.

The South African factor and FIFA’s turn

Unfortunately, the South Africans would have followed that match closely as well. South Africa is involved in the race for the only place allocated to the five teams in the group: Nigeria, South Africa, Lesotho, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Benin Republic.

In fact, they were clear leaders (almost crowned group winners) until fate came with its bag of tricks to add drama to the scenario, offering Benin Republic and Nigeria what turned out to be a lifeline, and keeping South Africa on a cliffhanger.

FIFA deducted three points and three goals from South Africa’s score and gave them to Lesotho, who were last in the standings and had no chance of qualifying even if they won their last two matches.

Nigeria’s complicated qualifying route

Deductions opened the field. Nigeria, which was already “dead” from previous poor results by its own standards, was given a glimmer of hope to qualify through a complicated process that requires a multitude of things to happen to qualify. They must win their last two matches by a wide margin of goals, and Zimbabwe and Rwanda must trip up South Africa in either of their other two matches.

It’s become a chess game for the Eagles, who plot three illusory moves by other teams playing Friday night!

The confusing Super Eagles qualification scenario

To add to the uncertain drama, could what the South Africans did during the match between the Super Eagles and Lesotho last night, NOT in Lesotho but in South Africa, even remotely affect their own chances if qualification ultimately comes down to goal difference with Nigeria?

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If you are already confused in understanding the complexity of the situation as it is now, it will only get even worse by trying to work out the math to predict what may happen, as I am trying to do now on Thursday night, and give up. Am I making any sense? It’s that confusing.

Super Eagles scoring challenges and do-or-die mentality

Nigeria’s chances of qualifying are much lower than South Africa and even Benin Republic because even when they win both their matches and South Africa stumble, Nigeria would still need to have scored all the goals they failed to score since the qualifiers began. They have not scored more than one goal in any of the games. Therefore, it is wishful thinking to expect them to do so in their last two games.

The irony is that the Super Eagles have two of the best forwards in their front line on the African continent, the best African players of the last two seasons: Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman, prolific scorers for their European clubs.

Therefore, winning the Lesotho and Benin Republic matches is a matter of life and death for the Super Eagles. The parties demand that kind of spirit and attitude.

Remembering Nigeria’s fighting spirit of the past

Unfortunately, until the last match against South Africa in Bloemfontein a few weeks ago, when we caught glimpses of the determination not to lose in their game after being a goal down, the Super Eagles had not played any of their previous matches with anything resembling rekindling the kind of spirit the team was famous for from the early 1970s until the end of the Jay Jay/Kanu era.

This was a period that combined physicality, speed, individual expressiveness and fighting style of play until the end of the 1970s with the European style, discipline and organization of the 1990s.

The spirit of the 70s: inspired by Nwabueze Nwankwo

What we have in the current team and era is the absence of the basic ingredients of previous years, which were honed by the way players organically developed in the tough and challenging domestic leagues of Nigerian football, a battleground for the survival of the fittest.

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Suddenly, I think of a player who embodied the spirit of 1970s football that gave rise to the ‘do or die’ culture of Nigerian football that we saw in players like Christian Chukwu, Muda Lawal, Sylvanus Okpala, Stephen Keshi, Henry Nwosu, Taribo West, Sunday Eboigbe, Bright Omokaro and some others.

He was nicknamed ‘Dan Vadis’, the American film actor who played superhero roles in films due to his strength and muscular physique.

The legacy of Nwabueze ‘Dan Vadis’ Nwankwo

Nwabueze Nwankwo led the midfield of the most feared team on the African continent in the early to mid-1970s, Rangers International FC of Enugu, as they emerged from the Nigerian-Biafra war. He was an officer in the Biafran army during the war. His teammates often told us stories of his courage, toughness and determination during the war. He was part of the birth of Enugu Rangers and his spirit and energy must have infected the rest of the team.

Playing against him was a nightmare for opposing midfielders. He wore a serious mask on his face and very smoldering eyes throughout the match as he lumbered around the midfield with his muscles rippling, planting his feet in bone-breaking tackles, cursing and terrorizing opponents until they heard him quietly, lobbing shots towards the opposition’s goals like hand grenades, and unleashing shots with his right foot full of cannons.

Nwabueze Nwankwo, now delayed, was a “monster” on the field, always serious, playing and leading his teammates to fight until the end as if their lives depended on winning.

How Nwankwo’s spirit defined the Green Eagles era

He brought that attitude and spirit to the Green Eagles in the mid-1970s and it became the culture of the Nigerian national team – they were always difficult to play against because of their physicality, fighting spirit and determination to win!

Even when the national team lost, it was never because they didn’t fight until the end! They would leave the field having covered every inch of grass, marked with battle scars.

Channeling the spirit of Nwankwo for today’s Super Eagles

This is how the Super Eagles should play these last two games. I hope they did it last night. I hope they have made Lesotho taste the poisoned chalice of Nwabueze Nwankwo.

The Eagles need to win these last two games, do well and leave their final destiny to the universe. It will no longer be in their hands but in those of the gods.

May the elements help the Super Eagles