Good day!\u200e\u200e<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saturday, like every other day of the week, keeps its promise and shows up every seven days without fail. Just like rain must fall, tax must be paid, thunder must grumble before lightning flashes, and every living soul must one day answer the final call. These things are inevitable. But almost everything else in life? It can change \u2014 suddenly, dramatically, or quietly over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of those ever-changing things is the form of champions. We all know the clich\u00e9, \u201cform is temporary but class is permanent.\u201d Nice quote. Sounds poetic. But the truth is that even class has an expiry date for most clubs. Only a handful of teams across world football maintain elite standards generation after generation. The rest? They rise, fall, rise again, then one day tumble so far down that their glory days become bedtime stories narrated by old fans with misty eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look at Nigeria\u2019s football landscape long enough and you\u2019ll realise we are Olympic-level excellent in one thing: inconsistency. Mighty Jets of Jos and Heartland (formerly the mighty Iwuanyanwu Nationale) are in the NNL today. Racca Rovers \u2014 yes, the same Racca Rovers that once faced a team featuring Pel\u00e9 \u2014 are now just a nostalgic whisper. Leventis United, BCC Lions, Udoji United, Ocean Boys, Stationery Stores\u2026 giants in their day, but today, you\u2019ll find many of them only in memories, photo albums, and abandoned jerseys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even the so-called \u201cbig sides\u201d of the NPFL \u2014 Enyimba, Rivers United, Kano Pillars, Rangers, Remo Stars, Bendel Insurance, Shooting Stars \u2014 none are immune. Some years, the biggest achievement for a Nigerian club isn\u2019t a title; it\u2019s avoiding relegation by Week 35. And every so often, one of these \u201cbig teams\u201d slides down the table like a car with bad brakes on Aba Road.\u200e\u200e<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is this our constant reality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For starters, the yearly demolition and rebuild ritual. One season ends, and clubs rush to sack 25 players and sign 28 new ones. Some clubs call it an improvement when they reduce the chaos to \u201conly\u201d 12 departures. How can there be stability when the team is rebuilt every ten months?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then you have the mindset that a football club is a government CSR project. As long as salaries are paid occasionally and the chairman gets his monthly allocation, they call it success. Running a club like an actual business? Planning for sustainability? Creating long-term value? Those ideas are treated like forbidden vocabulary.\u200e\u200e<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what about the players? Every NPFL footballer is living a tough dilemma: stay here for peanuts or jump at the first offer from Uzbekistan, Libya, Vietnam, Malta, or the Bangladesh third division. Who can blame them? If you were earning crumbs while risking injury on terrible pitches, you would take the flight too.\u200e\u200eNow, this weekend was supposed to be a blockbuster \u2014 defending champions Remo Stars vs. record champions Enyimba. On paper, this is the kind of fixture that should shake the league. But based purely on recent performances, it is starting to feel like just another NPFL matchday. The shine is not shining the way it used to.\u200e\u200e<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ll be back tomorrow with the match preview.\u200e\u200e<\/p>\n\n\n\n
EnyimbaEnyi \ud83d\udc99<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good day!\u200e\u200e Saturday, like every other day of the week, keeps its promise and shows up every seven days without fail. Just like rain must fall, tax must be paid, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"breadcrumbs_single_post":"","page_title_panel":"","breadcrumbs_single_page":"","single_page_alignment":"","single_page_margin":"","page_structure_type":"","content_style_source":"","content_style":"","blog_post_streched_ed":"","blog_page_streched_ed":"","has_transparent_header":"","disable_transparent_header":"","vertical_spacing_source":"","content_area_spacing":"","single_post_content_background":"","single_page_content_background":"","single_post_boxed_content_spacing":"","single_page_boxed_content_spacing":"","single_post_content_boxed_radius":"","single_page_content_boxed_radius":"","disable_featured_image":"","disable_post_tags":"","disable_author_box":"","disable_posts_navigation":"","disable_comments":"","disable_related_posts":"","disable_header":"","disable_footer":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_rishi_post_view_count":42},"categories":[6],"tags":[3,5],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-enyimba","tag-npfl","rishi-post"],"yoast_head":"\n