By now, even though the celebration galore and social media frenzy are still active, I believe it is no longer news that Mailantarki Care Football Academy has clinched the 2022 Dana Cup Competition held in Denmark.
The young, fledgling, lads demonstrated tenacious commitment and comfortably succeeded in beating every opponent that came their way during the competition with a dazzling and mesmerizing performance.
On the day of their departure via the Abuja Airport for the tournament, I paid a visit to the CEO and President of the Academy, Hon. Khamisu Mailantarki, when we discussed quite a lot, including plans to develop a world class, state-of-the-art sports complex.
As a mark of respect, as usual, he invited me to the Area 3 pitch where the lads were scheduled to play a league match in the afternoon before proceeding with their 11pm flight later in the night. We drove in his car alongside the club’s media officer and got to the venue when they had already started the match.
What I saw on the pitch from the players was really fascinating to say the least. I interacted with Coach Manu Garba and a host of agents, including Emeka Obasi, who were there scouting for talented players of the club academy. The lads were very brilliantly disciplined and amazingly organised on the pitch. They played with a lot of width, stretching play and capitalising on openings from the opposing side to unleash their offensive arsenal in the final third.
Their pressing was very superb; it’s more like they’re trying to replicate the Pep-inspired Barcelona tactics of winning the ball back after a few seconds of losing it, albeit with some work still to be done anyway. Their full backs communicate well with the wide players in the flanks, understandably interchanging positions where necessary. Their transition from attack to defence and vice versa was brilliant. The coaches really did a good job on them.
This beautifully egregious attribute is a good sign that they’ve mastered each other’s pattern during training. The front players were pacy and ubiquitously threatening in the final third, the resultant effect of which culminated into series of attempts that gave the opposition goalie a torrid afternoon.
It seems Manu Garba, the former U17 Golden Eaglet coach that won the World Cup, is doing a great job in nurturing these young boys. I had a lengthy discussion with Manu Garba, a very simple and down-to-earth man on the pitch and later back in the office. We discussed about past players, his time in Korea with the team as Yemi Tela’s assistant, the whereabouts of hitherto promising talents like Macauley Chrisantus, Kingsley Udoh, Rabiu Ibrahim to mention but a few. We equally talked about Iheanacho and how he impressed during camping for the U17 tournament that brought him to limelight.
Our discussion extended its scope to new football tactics and game plans that completely replaced the old ways of doing things. While talking, we reminisced about past players in the Premier League, Serie A and compared it with current happenings. Manu Garba was surprisingly fascinated that I know a lot about football, including past happenings in the game as well as the national level, given our in-depth discussions. I just smiled and we continued our discussions nonetheless.
One player that caught my attention and probably that of the several foreign scouts that graced the game was a young lad named “Dembele” who plays as an attacking left-footed winger deployed in the right flanks in order to create threatening chances and score goals. Though relatively still developing, he was full of brilliant speed and skills. He would sprint to close openings in midfield during possession loss and equally track back to help his full back and then proceed with the counter-press to win the ball back and start up a swift, transitioning counter-attack. His deadly left foot gave his opponents a torrid afternoon.
From the few minutes that I watched the young “Dembele” play, he registered four shots with two on target and equally delivered four dangerous balls inside the box. It is no wonder why the super-agent, Emeka Obasi— the agent of former Arsenal and Manchester United player, Alexis Sanchez, and the likes of Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka etc.— was there to monitor the game. The lad is really talented and, if given the chance to impress in Europe, he would definitely excel.
In a country of 200 million people, with everyone trying to survive and escape the menace of poverty, football represents one of the fastest routes to success.
Taking into cognizance the horrible indices that engulf Northern Nigeria and the seeming abundance of unrivalled talents spread across the length and breadth of the North that are untapped in the football niche, Mailantarki decided to swing into action in order to provide support for the teeming youths in Gombe and Northern Nigeria at large by coming up with an international-standard academy full of sumptuous and magnificent talents.
The Academy, though still in its heydays, has partnerships with clubs in France, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, etc. So far, hordes of talents from Gombe and Northern Nigeria in general have secured trials and obtain new clubs in Europe under the auspices of Mailantarki Care Football Academy as a stepping stone.
The Academy persistently conducts intermittent scouting activities where agents all over the world come to Abuja and other parts of Nigeria to monitor and, possibly, select talented players from all angles of Nigeria. So far, in Nigeria, Mailantarki Care Academy is the talk of the town and a sheer depiction of what the children of the ordinary man need to realise their life-time dreams.
Football isn’t something that is prioritised in Arewa. To buttress this point, many play it just for fun, not with the intention to eke a living out of it in spite of its propensity to transform lives as proven with star African players like Mane, Kante, Iheanacho, Osimhen etc. This is not unconnected to the lack of support and investment in that particular sector. However, over the years, that reality is gradually changing at a very fast rate and people are getting more informed that football is beyond mere passion but an endeavour that can be taken as a full-time career.
With the emergence of Mailantarki Football Academy, the revolution has just begun, and the quest to pick up talented players will continue to extend its tentacles across the nook and cranny of the North.
El-Bonga writes from Abuja
