Daniel ‘D Bull’ Amokachi is a Nigerian football legend who courts great respect from all and sundry in the country.
His name to some is authority and his memories are a fine piece of nostalgia. His nickname was borne out of his never-say-die, brute style of play which saw him make the national team at a very young age.
Amokachi was a fine footballer in his heydays, and wowed crowds with his energetic displays. This, he said is a piece from his military background.
“My love for football whilst growing up was inexplicable. It is what I did – and still do – every day; I played football during break time at school, after school and on the way home from school. We had street and inter-street competitions. It was explosive! There was so much talent and skill on display as teams tried to outdo the other. That, to me, is where the love for the game was nurtured,” he told Athlst.
“My dad was a military man, so my blood is military. Even some of my nephews, uncles, and cousins toed that line. Our family name, ‘Amokachi’, is a name that everyone knows and I’m proud and blessed to have taken it to greater heights during my career as a footballer.”
His story has a pattern and clear course, resonant to many Nigerians, many of whom didn’t emerge from wealthy backgrounds.
The environment is a natural propellant for these players and others as they always have a point to prove.
Despite these backgrounds, and the story that back determination from players, the necessity of quality is not an abstract requirement.
The Nigerian football league back in the day was an exceptional piece of competitive football and it made many national heroes, yet Nigeria didn’t make it to the World Cup until 1994.
Various schools of thoughts have been propounded to defend this. While some have said it’s because of the strong competition back in the day, others have opined it was a matter of luck.
In 2006, Nigeria was dominated by players born and bred in Nigeria, with those grass to grace stories Nigeria loves to celebrate. Those stories are relatable, inspiring, perhaps are our truth. Despite the presence of players of these backgrounds, Nigeria missed out on the World Cup to Angola.
Amokachi, like every other Nigerian is not happy with the Super Eagles’ failure to qualify for the World Cup, but to blame players’ origins and backgrounds as the reason it happened is a disrespect to personalities.
Everyone doesn’t have to come from poverty, the like Amokachi hailed Victor Osimhen for against Ghana.
“Football in Nigeria and Africa is a religion. If we don’t have a player like Osimhen who hawked pure water on the Third Mainland bridge, you can see that’s the way he plays.
“He knows what it takes to play for Nigeria. That’s why he’s running 24/7 to make us win,” he told Supersports.
In his opinion, Osimhen’s ginger comes from his days of selling pure water and that’s what Nigeria needed against Ghana. It’s a statement premised on mere emotional kickabout, with no recourse to the backgrounds and stories of every individual involved in the failure, or more openly and importantly, the systems and setup adopted on the day.
Osimhen, perhaps would have loved to come from a better environment, where his skills would have been honed to global taste a long time ago and he’d be an even greater global talent by now.
To blame the backgrounds of players for what happened on the pitch is a pub sentiment that needs to be discouraged in order to promote unity amongst players.
“And then you have players who grew up outside the shores of Nigeria that don’t know what it takes to wear the national colours in the World Cup, it is different,” Amokachi continued.
“Several of the players have not been to the World Cup, they don’t know what it is. 99 percent of those players haven’t even felt the Nigerian stadium filled up like the way it was filled up.”
For a man like Amokachi, for the glory he controls and his public personae today, a lot more is expected. His opinion to many is the word and it only continues to deviate from the root cause of the problems.
Glorifying poverty doesn’t inspire anyone. Everyone has a story to tell and there are deeper known reasons for Nigeria’s failure than Amokachi is reiterating.
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Amokachie is just a very uneducated and ignorant fellow. All he knows is football. Coming from a man who has children from a foreign lady is despicable. It that his opinion about his children? Amokachie is not a better Nigerian than our diaspora born children. What do you expect from a money miss road who squandered his wealth on private jets?
Anokachi was speaking metaphorically, he was not glorifying poverty. You're the one interpreting it as such. He was referring to the lack of determination by most of the Super eagles players and most saw that too - the Black stars wanted it more. I agree other factors contributed as well - the systems and coaching, etc. Determination is key to success- even the holy books refer to hard work and grit as cornerstones of success. Even if you don't succeed, people would still appreciate it if you go down fighting.
It rather laughable that you have chosen this approach in responding to Daniel's submissions. He was someone I had the privilege of playing with and against back in the 80's. And to clear you on his education, yes he dropped out of school when he was in form 3 to pursue his passion (football). He was quite successful and rose to the pinnacle of his carrier while playing for clubs within and outside Nigeria. Was the first player to score the first champions League goal, played for the super eagles winning AFCON and the Olympic gold in 96. He's also not uneducated as you submitted because he studied privately over the years when he had the time to do so. Quite eloquent, smart and intelligent, when he could afford it, he owned a private jet and when he could not keep up with the cost, he farmed it out. God has been good to him because aside coaching and punditry, he also has a few businesses that he would not want publicised. His outburst is well founded because background plays a lot of part in an individual. The Nigerian national team has never been this rudderless and purposeless as we have it today. The level of pride and commitment has dropped with some of the present crop of players opting to play only in the world cup and refused to show up for AFCON duties when invited (Dennis) comes to mind. Passion level is next to zero save for a few players like Osimen, Ekong, etc. Like Enyeama said, there can never be another him, there can never be another Daniel Amokachi, JJ Okocha or Emmanuel Amunike. Any coach coming now mist up the passion level to achieve anything.
You should be laughing at yourself and Amokachie. We surely have educated fools who do not see anything wrong in denigrating their children and other Nigerian children born in diaspora
Who said daniel amokach is ai drop out.he is my school mate in govt college kaduna class of 89. Im in A1 he is in A9 art class.when we where writing waec he was representing nigeria in wafu cup.The school authorities authorised him to go and represent nigeria.
Amokachi
Spoke from a position of ignorance ..
His lack of formal education as well as sport education and the prerequisite discipline was speaking more than his person in his unfortunate comments .
If he was educated he would know that most diaspora Nigerian football are exposed to developmental growth in their playing abilities unlike our home grown footballers who are fueled by just raw talents and zero ball sense!
If he Amokachi was a foreign raised footballer he would have done better in his career too
Amokachi got it all wrong. There was nothing wrong with those boys. There was everything wrong with Eguavoen's tactics. In fact he has none and is too stiff to learn. He has been coach of Nigeria's age group soccer teams three times and acting coach of Super Eagles once before the latest disaster. He wasted the talents at his disposal on each occasion. He is tactically naive and technically confused. Amokachi does not see his colleague's failings, he only sees the failure of young lads who are patriotic enough to come and play for Nigeria not withstanding that they were not born here. Reuben Agboola and John Chiedozie did it before and the nation applauded. I want Amokachi to analyse the game from the point of team selection and tactics rather than use uncomplimentary words on the lads that have done absolutely nothing wrong by coming to play for their country of origin. If the only reason to qualify for world is that your team must comprise of predominantly players born and bred at home Algeria, Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire and South Africa would have qualified. Same for Italy and Sweden; and Nigeria would have been qualifying for every edition since independence. Amokachi should apologize to those innocent lads. They did their best; just as Amokachi and his colleagues did their best in 1994 and still lost from a winning position at the world cup in 1994.
Amokachi got it all wrong. There was nothing wrong with those boys. There was everything wrong with Eguavoen's tactics. In fact he has none and is too stiff to learn. He has been coach of Nigeria's age group soccer teams three times and acting coach of Super Eagles once before the latest disaster. He wasted the talents at his disposal on each occasion. He is tactically naive and technically confused. He should not have been appointed to coach the team in the first place because he doesn't know what to do. Amokachi does not see his colleague's failings, he only sees the failure of young lads who are patriotic enough to come and play for Nigeria not withstanding that they were not born here. Reuben Agboola and John Chiedozie did it before and the nation applauded. I want Amokachi to analyse the game from the point of team selection and tactics rather than use uncomplimentary words on the lads that have done absolutely nothing wrong by coming to play for their country of origin. If the only reason to qualify for world is that your team must comprise predominantly players born and bred at home Algeria, Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire and South Africa would have qualified. Same for Italy and Sweden; and Nigeria would have been qualifying for every edition since independence. Amokachi should apologize to those innocent lads. They did their best; just as Amokachi and his colleagues did their best in 1994 and still lost from a winning position at the world cup in 1994.
To make insulting statements in condemning a point of view of someone like Amokachi on Nigeria football is what I don't see necessary most especially in this case and circumstance. I don't agree with criticism that insinuate insults
Amokachi was right. Anybody who watched Nigeria Vs Ghana will agree that the fighting spirit and the never say die attitude Nigerians are known for (save for Victor Osimhen) was absent in the team. That ruggedness required to win such a game was nowhere. When we were down, they were all deflated instead of being provoked and saying to themselves make we die here. The average Nigerian brought up has that spirit and that was what Amokachi was pointing out. He was not glorifying poverty but was pointing out the simple truth of how rugged upbringing instills a fighting hard to succeed spirit in a person. If you like hate him for that but its simply the truth. With all the skills the players had, did you see the fighting to come back spirit like the one Nigeria had in the semi finals of Atlanta 96? That kind of spirited efforts would have made the difference in the Nigeria/Ghana match.
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