Showing posts with label Nations Cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nations Cup. Show all posts

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Set- football as we play it


Kids thrilling themselves to a game of neigbourhood football. Match ups like this are called "set" as you have another set of players waiting in the wings to play once one team has racked up a certain number of goals against the other.

The goal posts used for games like this one are small, about half a metre wide, and are usually called "monkey posts".

Notice that they play bare footed, that's how many African football stars began, by kicking around in the dust and then becoming household names worldwide through determination and hard work.

The African Nations Cup is taking place in Angola at the moment, it's Africa's own World Cup and many of these kids will like to be in the shoes of their heroes one day.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

National Stadium


The National Stadium in Surulere was the scene of Nigeria's victory in the 1980 African Cup of Nations football championships. In that final match, Nigeria triumphed 3-0 over Algeria. Some of the major actors that day are still very much around. Segun Odegbami, Christian Chukwu, all greats of Nigerian football.

20 years later in 2000, Nigeria could not repeat the same feat as we lost to Cameroon on the same ground via penalties in the final. It was the third time Cameroon were beating us in the final of the tournament.