For the Nigerian sports faithful, Year 2022 didn’t exactly meet their expectations following some poor outings by the country’s athletes. EBENEZER BAJELA and ABIODUN ADEWALE take a look at some of the athletes/teams who put up inconspicuous performances this year
SUPER EAGLES
Separating the wheat from the chaff in the Super Eagles for 2022 is difficult because few of the players were brilliant individually, but as a bunch, their output was unacceptable.
The men’s senior national team started the year on a promising note at the AFCON in Cameroon; beginning their bid for a fourth title with a famous win over Egypt before recording a 100 per cent record in the group stage. But the tables turned in the round of 16 against Tunisia and Nigerians soon began to look for culprits and scapegoats among a team that was tagged brilliant.
Two months later, a Qatar 2022 ticket was at stake against Ghana, and the Eagles bottled it in front of a packed MKO Abiola Stadium in Abuja, just as millions were also let down by their failure to qualify for the World Cup. Just three months into the year, the last straw had already broken the camel’s back.
Aside wins against Sierra Leone as well as Sao Tome and Principe in the 2023 AFCON qualifiers, the Eagles were underwhelming in friendly games against Mexico, Ecuador, Algeria and Portugal.
D’TIGERS
Ranking next to the Eagles among the flops of the year are the country’s men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, who put up a poor performance at the last window of the 2023 FIBA World Cup qualifiers in Ivory Coast.
D’Tigers recorded one win in three games, losing 78-66 to hosts Ivory Coast on in their first game at the 3,500-capacity Palais des Sports Treichville and putting their qualification hopes for next year’s World Cup in a tight corner.
The 2015 AfroBasket winners recorded an 89-70 victory over Guinea in their second game to bounce back from their earlier defeat to the Ivoirians, but they were brought down to earth in their last game of the series, losing 70-67 to Angola.
With the final window in February 2023, D’Tigers’s chances of qualifying for the FIBA Basketball World Cup scheduled to hold from August 25 to September 10, 2023 in Japan, Indonesia and The Philippines.
SUPER FALCONS
Just like their male counterparts, the Super Falcons failed to live up to standard following an underwhelming performance that saw them bow out of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco in July.
For the first time in their storied history in the competition, the Randy Waldrum-tutored girls were eliminated in the quarter-finals of WAFCON by a less-fancied Morocco team, a tournament they had made their specialty after winning it a record 9 times out of 11 editions.
MADUKA OKOYE
One of the scapegoats of Super Eagles poor run in 2022, goalkeeper Maduka Okoye would have wished for something different in 2022 after coming through the ranks at club level and national team.
After Nigeria’s ouster at the AFCON, Okoye hugged the spotlight with his Dutch side, Sparta Rotterdam, helping them escape relegation.
But a move to Watford in the EPL followed his heroics in the Eredivise, and his club career seems to have nosedived since joining Watford. He is yet to make a league appearance since he joined in the summer.
KELECHI IHEANACHO
For a player that has been striving to stay consistent at club and national team level, Kelechi Iheanacho did little to make himself indispensable at Leicester and the Super Eagles.
Perhaps Ihenancho’s struggle began in the previous EPL campaign, his once staggering run for the Foxes has been halted and it appears he isn’t paying attention to it.
In a combined 37 appearances in the premier league for Leicester since the start of the 2021/22 season, the player has only managed five goals.
After the redeeming goal and performance for Nigeria against Egypt at the AFCON in Cameroon, not so much was seen from the man who needed to turn up and justify his return to the team.
NPFL QUARTET (Enyimba, Kwara United, Plateau United, MFM)
By their own standards in the Nigeria Professional Football League, Enyimba International FC of Aba had an underwhelming campaign in the NPFL in 2022. The Aba giants finished 7th on the league table with 52 points, 25 points behind winner Rivers United. Enyimba also failed to finish in the top four for the first time in five seasons.
Unlike Enyimba, MFM’s campaign in 2022 NPFL needed a miracle; but that doesn’t win a football game. After six inspiring seasons in the topflight, the Olukoya boys were relegated to the second division after finishing bottom of the table with 36 points from 38 games.
For Kwara United, the Ilorin-based side got a CAF Confederation Cup ticket on a platter of gold at the end of the 2022 season. But after an impressive 3-1 win over RS Berkane in Lagos, the Harmony Boys couldn’t scale the preliminaries hurdles in the second leg, as they lost out by the bare minimum margin in Morocco.
Like Kwara United, Plateau United also missed the CAF Confederation Cup ticket after letting a 4-1 advantage slip away after losing 3-0 to Al Akhdar of Libya.
No thanks to both clubs and Remo Stars’ ouster in the first round, 2022 was Nigerian clubs’ best shot at more representation on the continent.
Anthony Joshua
Following defeat to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021, Joshua decided to leave his longtime trainer and meet up with Robert Garcia while also activating his rematch clause with the Ukrainian, ensuring a second encounter between the two heavyweights.
The result was the same outcome to the first as the British-Nigerian suffered yet another defeat to Usyk in 2022 and failed to win back the WBO, WBA, IBO and IBF titles.
Joshua entered the contest as a heavy underdog and despite showing a lot of new improvements to his game he wound up exhausted out after a near-stoppage. He was battered for the rest of the contest before losing by a split decision on the cards to end the year on another losing note.
Isreal Adesanya
Most recently at UFC 281 on November 13 at the Madison Square Garden, Adesanya lost his middleweight belt to his former kickboxing rival, Alex Pereira to make it three defeats at the hands of the Brazilian.
Adesanya came into the fight with an impeccable record in the UFC Middleweight division seeking revenge against Pereira who defeated him twice in kickboxing back in 2016 and 2017.
The 33-year-old dominated the fight up until the fifth round when he was knocked out through a combination of punches by Pereira.
The Last Stylebender now loses his first middleweight bout in the MMA after five successful title defenses since he became champion.
