Ordinarily, fans of the beautiful game, football, complain of boredom during off season period but this particular one 2025 has been very loaded with many events plus the newly-introduced FIFA Club World Cup as the icing on the cake.
Interesting competitions have been staged in Asia, Africa, Europe and of course the USA, where the CWC took place with 32 teams on parade across the globe.
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There was one European teaser when the UEFA Nations League finals took place. Football legend, Cristiano Ronaldo, led Portugal to victory over highly-rated Spain. It was interesting.
In the FIFA World Club Cup, four teams represented Africa, they are – Al Ahly FC (Egypt), Wydad AC (Morocco), Mamelodi Sundowns FC (South Africa) and Espérance Sportive de Tunis (Tunisia).
That a Nigerian team was not part of it was a setback for the domestic league and fans of the game in Nigeria. It means the teams are not doing well enough over a period of time based on the evaluation of FIFA.
However, it was indeed a big spectacle that kept football fans all over the world entertained over a period of time. The teams from South America were highly impressive just as there were surprises from Saudi Arabia where Al-Hilal stunned the world to feature in the semis. No one expected the Saudi team to feature in the last four.
The team played 1-1 draw with Real Madrid in the group stage and went ahead to defeat Manchester City 4-3 in the quarterfinal stage. PSG, after winning the UEFA Champions League, went all the way and it was expected that after spanking Real Madrid 4-0, no team could stop them in the final but Chelsea did in style, winning 3-0 in the final. Overall, it was an amazing tournament.
From the Nigerian perspective, only five players were in the competition. Zaidu Sanusi, who came out in the colours of Porto is the only known person and he has fallen out of favour in the core Super Eagles team. Onuche Ogbelu of Esperance is also unknown just like the three players of Al Ain FC of the United Arab Emirates are practically unknown in the football scene.
They are Rilwanu Haliru Sarki, Joshua Udoh and Hassan Sani Mohammed, who is a goalkeeper.
The top stars are nowhere in the scene. The country’s players are not currently playing in top teams abroad. Nigeria’s top striker and perhaps Most Valuable Players, Victor Osimhen, played in Galasataray last season. Current African Footballer of the year, Ademola Lookman, is a player of Atalanta. I pray his proposed move to Inter pulls through.
It is important for top players in the country to play for top teams. In the past, Celestine Babayaro was a captain of Chelsea, Nwankwo Kanu featured for Ajax, won league and Champions League and also featured for Arsenal to win honours.
Joseph Yobo was also a skipper Everton. Mikel Obi spent 11 years at Chelsea and played prominent role for the London side and won trophies with the team.
Today, the situation is not same. Osimhen is close to a permanent deal with Galasataray of Turkey but he deserves far better as one of the best strikers in the world currently.
There are a few movements here and there by Eagles stars but this piece is not about transfers but about prominence of our star players and their management in football space across the globe.
Bryan Mbeumo is a Cameroonian and his link with Manchester United has been one of the biggest issues in the ongoing transfer window. It is all about having a good agent and overall goo team to project a professional player.
One of the top Eagles stars was quoted as saying he was an adult and can take decisions. So laughable. You can only be the footballer and not an expert in other areas, rather, you listen to advises.
The pedigree of Nigeria is high in global football but this is not manifesting in a pre-season period in which there are so many things top-notch games, talking points and competitions.
Nigerian clubs failed to meet the cut among teams for the CWC just as the individual players are also not in good clubs good enough to feature in the new 32-team format for the maiden improved version of the tournament which comes up every four years.
The NFF and the NPFL should boost Nigerian team representing the country on the continent with technical support. The Eagles should also be humble enough to imbibe the right rights such that they are better projected in their respective clubs abroad.
Nigeria can do much better. Whither, the Eagles stars?
