Sports

Up Close and Personal – 20052026

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment
Yesterday, I watched Pep Guardiola walk away from the pitch after someone in the stands held up a placard that read, “Pep Stay.” And I understood him perfectly.

If you have been somewhere and poured your all into it, yet the desired results are not showing, it may simply be time to move on.

Sometimes, time breeds overfamiliarity, complacency, and lowered standards. I began to notice this creeping slowly into the Man City squad two seasons ago, and now we are paying the price for it.

The discipline and the tiki-taka football that once gave City so much possession, allowing them to complete 40–50 uninterrupted passes, sometimes ending in a goal, have become things of the past. We now give away possession even when we are not under pressure. Yesterday, I watched Semenyo run the ball out beyond the touchline, and I shook my head at how low we had fallen.

Yet we would still finish the league second on the table and win two domestic trophies. That would satisfy many ordinary coaches, but not Pep, not people who have raised their standards so high.

So here’s wishing him the very best as he moves on at the end of the season, even though the announcement was leaked prematurely.

And to you out there, maybe the issue is not you. Maybe you simply need to move away from that job. For those whose relationships are struggling because of overfamiliarity, maybe it is time to return to the basics again.

Sometimes, there has to be a retreat before there can be a refiring.

Have a great day, and cheers!


#onadol #adewumioni #peace #wisdom #lifecoach #writing #EndPoliceBrutality #BadGovernance #Grace #Patience #Fulfilment #FightAgainstCorruption #DailyReflection #SayNoToDrugs #SayNoToRape #SayNoToRacism #DokunOni #PositiveMind #Destiny #Women #Lagos #Parenting #Impact

Keshi’s Sack – Wrong Timing

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

Now that NFF has sacked Keshi midway to qualification, can Amodu Shuaibu achieve anything in the last two games? Can he put a solid team together? It seems poor decision making always tag along with NFF. Keshi should either have been sacked after world cup or left to complete this qualification pursuit.
Again, personally I do not think Amodu can do anything different, we are just recycling the same set of skilled and maybe seasoned coaches but who lack technical prowess to read, analyze and outsmart the opponent coach from the bench. All our coaches need is to understudy some of the Champion League coaches for a year or so.
Do we have the humility of kind to do this? I doubt it.

Is it all about Money?

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

It is distraughtful that almost everything we do in Nigeria revolves around money. We have sacrificed almost everything good at the altar of money. When the Super Eagles are at a crucial stage, where a loss means exit from the World Cup, rather than focus on how to defeat France and move on to the Quarter final for the first time, our Eagles are boycotting training and asking for their share of the $8m from FIFA for qualifying for the second round. Whether it is justified or not is not my focus, it is the fact that the crucial match is of less importance than the money that beats me.
Also, why do we keep having this issue? Why can’t our players have confidence and trust in our football administrators?