You can share our beer but not our goal

BY IBEKA OGAZI

“Look, man, you can share our beer, but we no go gree for anybody that wants to share our goals!”

Every Nigerian worth his or her patriotism stayed up till the wee hours of Sunday, January 28, 2024. The Super Eagles, our darling male national football team, was pitted against no less a footballing rival than the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.

Games in the group stages, lacklustre and nearly “unNigerian” did not leave many with strong enough hopes for a victory, but the burst of national pride has a way of mustering everyone to the many war fronts in bars and living rooms where all sorts of generals bravely dish out war strategies, and when the enemy is an unrepentant old rival like Cameroon, a neighbour whose scars we still bear in the most obvious parts of our national ego, differences are set aside as all weapons that are “fashionable” against such a foe must be made to prosper.

With my friend, Peter, we took our vantage position at the touchline in a bar in my Lagos hood. I like Peter a lot; a very good-natured person, a patriotic Nigerian – almost a zealot, but my only problem with him is his criminally avid support for Manchester United. That annoys me a lot, but when the matter is about Nigeria and football, I forgive him his sins and we sit like good friends to drink our beer.

With bottles of chilled Life lager beer struggling to survive our relentless bangs on the table as we dished instructions to both Jose Peseiro the coach, and the players on the pitch, we endured what looked like a miserable first 20 minutes of what eventually turned out to be a beautiful evening of footballing triumph for Nigeria.

Our boys started quite badly, struggling to string their passes together. Haunted by the below-average performances during the group stages, we judged the players rather too quickly, and even when the sign came that the evening was going to end good with the disallowed goal early in the first half, we wanted more from the boys and we wanted it early.

We were on the edge of our seats for most parts of the early exchanges, dousing the tension with sips from the glasses before us. We were not alone; everybody was on edge, pouring their frustrations and soothing their anxiety into the bottles of goodness before them. As if the barman knew, he provided most of us with giant glasses of branded Life beer that took almost all the contents of our bottles.

Life is really good, but it is much better when you watch football with passionate fans. We almost broke bottles on the head of the referee when he ruled what we thought, and wished was our first goal for offside. We were on our feet in righteous rage, coursing through the bar in search of the man we felt was out to be our nemesis for the night, cursing and remonstrating.

Ninety percent of us knew that, based on a new FIFA rule, that Nigerian player was offside and that the VAR, unlike it frequently happened during English Premier League matches, was spot-on!

Yes, the goal was disallowed, but we became more hopeful, and consequently more relaxed. With further help from the caged Lions of Cameroon who were goal-area-shy and had no shot on target throughout the first 45 minutes, we thus sipped in relative peace, reducing the risk we posed to the lives of the Life beer glasses and bottles on our tables.

It was after we were this more relaxed that we began to enjoy the game. We noticed the strengths of our players; the relentless pressure Alex Iwobi posed to nearly all Cameroonian players on the field; the defensive brick wall constructed and coordinated by Captain-Fantastic, William Troost-Ekong; the fearless dribbles of Moses Simon, and the combined military-like raids of Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimen on the Cameroonian defence.

Osimen, for his energy and dogged fights, won the Man-of-the-Match for many of us! It became clear to us why he is the reigning African footballer of the year! The guy is a German, sorry a Nigerian machine, and deserves a place in Life’s Hall of Fame!

He got us the first goal: He survived desperate and intentional efforts to snuff out the attack he initiated, leaving his two assailants scattered on the floor in his trail, and like Amalinze the cat in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, he resisted all efforts to make him fall, managing to nudge a pass to Lookman in the process.

With a sexy kick that passed under the flailing arm of the listless Cameroonian goalkeeper, the ball was destined to end nowhere else but the net. But still determined to delay our collective national joy, a Cameroonian player sped to the ball, but ended up helping it in its journey to shake the net and rouse our joy!

Thankfully, the ball had already crossed the line for an Ademola Lookman goal before the Cameroonian’s desperate intervention, and even as the bar erupted in an ecstatic mixture of screams, hugs, and thunderous pumping of fists, Peter, my friend shouted over the din at the Cameroonian player, whom he accused of attempting to convert Ademola Lookman’s goal into an own-goal;

“Look, this man, you can come to share our beer with us, but what we wouldn’t take is you trying to share our goal!” Peter was at his humorous best, and with this goal, and a vastly improved Super Eagles team, he threatened it was going to be an interesting evening.

An interesting evening it was, and as the second half resumed, it was easy to conclude that a Cameroonian come-back was quite slim and that the Indomitable Lions were only escorting the Eagles to their quarter-final qualification.

“Barman,” he screamed, for the umpteenth time, and made a circular gesture with his index finger. The barman understood. He meant that our drinks should be replaced, and when the drinks arrived, he also pointed at a table where three men had been nursing a bottle each since we arrived for the match. No word was said, but in minutes, three bottles of beer were in a basket, on their way to spread the joy of the evening to total strangers.

“That is the spirit,” I said to my friend, in acknowledgment of his gesture to strangers, and as if in response to the mood of the moment, Ademola Lookman arrived at the end of a cross by Calvin Bassey from the cross from close to the Cameroonian left corner flag, and netted when can compete for goal of the tournament.

People danced with glasses in their hands, bathing those around them in beer. Nobody complained. As the cameras panned to the touchline, the dejected face of Coach Rigobert Song, and the consternation on the face of legendary serial winner, Samuel Eto’o Fils reinforced the revelry of those of us who triumphed.

With the second goal as a cushion, and Cameroon still unable to register a single shot on target, the clock conspiratorially ran faster and the match was soon over. The 10 minutes of added time appeared like two minutes.

The referee blew the final whistle at the end of 100 minutes, but it was clear nobody was eager to leave and go home. Everybody wanted the after-glow to linger a bit more, and like well-fed ruminants, we kept regurgitating several high points of the game.

“Bro, we no go go house today,” asked my friend Peter, as the clock on his phone that he waved before me indicated it was 23 minutes past 11 PM.

I smiled and waved to the barman, who immediately understood both my circular gesture of “replace our beer,” and the one I pointed to those same three men who were earlier “blessed” by my friend.

Life arrived shortly after, and with filled glasses, we continued sharing the joy of the evening – a joy that we pray will follow us to the final, and the trophy – a joy that is possible when you share it with friends.