Heart Break In Owerri, Heart Attack In Calabar

[Shola Sholaz]

Let me quickly say this morning that I will pretend nothing happened in Calabar. In far away Ghana, I could not watch the match live, so I had to depend on second hand information.
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My kids at home were filing me in every ten minutes......even as I was starring at the traumatic Livescore internet service that does not tell you much apart from the blinking timing.
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When I saw something like a Kenya Goal, I quickly remembered colleagues that were in Calabar and frantically tried to reach them. Got George Aluo and he confirmed that the Kenyans were truly leading! Despite George's belief that the Eagles were playing well enough for an equalizer and subsequent victory, anguish has an agonizing meaning.
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As the match progressed and the minutes ticked painfully towards stoppage time, I did not just know what was happening. I have spoken to quite a couple of people including the President of the NFF, yet I am not in a position to comment authoritatively on the match.
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Outside the match, I believe those who said the Nations Cup honeymoon is over, are now beating their chest with " I told you so" expressions.
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Outside the match, I believe those who called for a Nations Cup  postmortem are now vindicated. That we needed to come home, analyse and review our success as it were and plot a forward graph.
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That, we did not do, wasting time instead on unnecessary bickerings that has now set us backward. If the Kenya draw is a wake up call, I thank the Harambee Stars. I was at the Babayara Stadium in Kumasi when it was finally confirmed that we had forced the Kenyans to a draw and unbelief reigned. For the President of the GFA, it was an opportunity to remind the Black Stars that football can be stupid. That if Kenya can go to Nigeria and be forced to a draw by the Champions of Africa, then they should be careful against Sudan the next day!