The Weekend It All Went Wrong For Nigeria

Lexscope unsplash.com

I am wondering how many people just saw me smiling sheepishly, as I sit here and drink my last shot of spirit, lol. I am at this beautiful bar, trying to take in all that happened this past weekend. It is One weekend I want to forget in a hurry.

If one could erase a day, or perhaps 2 days, from history, that would probably be last Saturday and Sunday. On this particular days, everything that could go wrong went completely wrong. Nothing gave the slightest of clue it would turnout the way it did.

It was the weekend and like you know, weekends are for good times and relaxation. There is always so much to look forward to. The day started with great expectations, at least for me . Like you know as well, weekends are for sports. If you are a sports fan like me, you would cherish weekends. A lot of sporting activities taking place and I was expecting good results from different fronts.

Nigerians are generally sports loving people,at least I can say so for over 70% of the people. Nothing unifies the people the way sports does. Individual differences are thrown out of the window as they rally behind the countries representatives in different sports.

I vividly remember Atlanta Olympics. I was quite small then but well aware of happenings around me. I remember the celebrations as everyone took to the streets of Festac to celebrate Nigerians Victory over Brazil enroute to winning the soccer gold. Dad went very late to work that day as the celebration lasted till morning. It was beyond wonderful.

Support for the country's sporting teams has always been fanatical. But it has not really been the same recently, most likely because the country's representatives has not been doing well lately. There has still been support nonetheless.

So last weekend happened, with it came plenty to look forward to as a Nigerian. The country was being represented on different sporting activities .

Anthony Joshua was fighting to take back his belts from Usyk in boxing. Umaru Usman was defending his belt in MMA. The Nigerian Junior Team was playing for a place in the semi finals of the women's World Cup. If you add my beloved team in the EPL playing, then you will understand when I say the weekend was going to be explosive.

Truth be told I wasn't expecting much from Anthony Joshua. I had always believed it was going to be a tall order for him. Though I still gave the fight 50/50. Hey, it's boxing, anything can happen. But then, gun to my head, I could only see one winner, and it was always Usyk. The other two contests I believed was going to be a walk over for the country's representatives. How deluded I was, lol.

johann Walter Bantz unsplash.com

I was awake for the Anthony Joshua fight, as it was still within my wake time. The fight started. I saw some sign of hope in the earlier rounds. Joshua had greatly improved his technique, this was way more competitive than the first fight. But as the rounds go, I could see hope gradually fade.

There was no way Joshua was going to out box Usyk. Only a knock out would do the work for him. I didn't see that happening. By the 12th round I knew it was all over for him. There was going to be one winner, and it won't be Joshua.

Well, I was not surprised, more like I saw it coming. Expected a miracle though. So, one down, two more to go. If you add Chelsea, then its three more to go for me.

From the dissapointment of Joshua's loss and Umaru's fight to come early in the morning on Sunday, I went to sleep.

I woke up by 6am to see the news all over my twitter time line. Umaru had lost his belt. How? Dis one shock me. Honestly Didn't see it coming. Watching the replay, I could see it was a lucky win. Usman had completely dominated the fight but one vicious kick from Leon did the damage. How are the mighty fallen. It was unbelievable, but the deed was done. We have a new champion, Umaru has lost his belt. Now this is not looking good for Nigeria. Two down, hmm.

Chelsea was to play Leeds in the English Premier league. As far as I was concerned it was a walkover, seeing how well we played against Tottenham previous weekend. Never knew Leeds had another plan. They don't play by the script. By the time 90mims had elapsed, Chelsea were down 3:0. This is no longer funny.

The last hope for some form of redemption was to come from the women's junior world Cup. So I believed.

Nigeria was to play Netherlands for a chance to qualify for the semi finals of the competition . Seeing the strings of losses, I honestly didn't know what to expect.

I slept early so couldn't watch the match. By the time I woke up this morning, the girls had lost, 2:0. Again! Abeg wetin dey happen? What a weekend this has been. Four losses back to back. I have never experienced this before. Looked like everything decided to work against Nigeria.

But then this things happen. I just had to console myself, better days are coming. One day, likely soon, it will be all winners. By the way how does it feel when not even one of your bets enters, that kind thing Don do you before?

All pictures from unsplash.com
Lead picture :Lexscope
2nd picture: Johann Walter Bantz