Small world, really small world

I have a little story to tell.

If am boring you, please skip this part.
About three, four years ago or thereabouts, when I was still with KickOff Magazine as Managing Editor, a young man came to my office at Victoria Island.

He had just recovered from a near fatal car crash in Germany (or Austria, not sure any more) and was just putting his football career back on track. He brought pics of the crash, and I have to admit it was difficult to see how anyone could have come out of that alive, or without some permanently crippling injury at best.

He also showed me a pic he had taken with Sunday Oliseh while they were both at Cologne together, although he (not Oliseh) was more a reserve team player.

He then told me his agent was arranging a move for him to a big club (I forget the club now). And even gave me the agent's contacts (I think it was a consortium).

Bottomline (which I had half guessed, from previous experience) is that he wanted me to help give him coverage in KickOff.

I told him very politely that that was something I could not do, for the simple reason that not only was he not playing football yet, he was not a 'known' quantity who could make headlines on his own, and on the basis of his past football exploits.

I gave him the Kanu heart problem as an example. Because of what he had achieved with Nigeria, Kanu's heart problem in 96 was major news and the man himself would have continued to be even if he had stopped playing football then.

I then told him that he should go back to Europe, get into that big club and start playing football and by the time he started doing well, I would be the one chasing him for interviews as his football would do his talking for him.

He left, leaving his contact details and that of his agents. I never heard from nor saw him again.

Until now.

And who was that young man, you may ask. Well, his name is Emeka Ezeala, and he is now Technical Assistant to Super Eagles coach Berti Vogts.

Small world, eh? Better believe it.

I finally saw him again with Berti when they came into Lagos last month, and I recalled that his face looked familiar, but I could not quite place it until a day before the match.

I had somehow got the Ugandan starting line-up from the Ugandan journos in Abeokuta with a good idea of how they were going to play (which turned out correct except for a last minute change at RB) and I wanted to pass it on to Berti.

The reason I was doing that was because the tape of Uganda Berti had requested for, had not arrived (it never did). Idah Peterside had been asked to get the tape on the Monday before the game. He did so and sent it via DHL on Tuesday hoping it would arrive by Wednesday.

When it didnt arrive on Wednesday, Austin Eguavoen called Idah to find out why. Idah called DHL and it turned out that they were only going to send it on Thursday, meaning it wouldnt get to Abeokuta until Friday afternoon, by which time it would be too late.

Idah called me to see what I could do. So I got the line-ups and tactics from the Ugandans, and also went to look at their final training session.

I then stopped by Ezeala's room after seeing some players and passed on everything I had to him and he promptly took it to Berti.

While I was in his room waiting for him, I saw some pics he had left on the bed and decided to take a look. That was when I saw the Oliseh pic and it all came back to me (apologies to Celine Dion).

When he came back, i showed him the pic and asked him if he remembered giving me a copy. It turned out the young man remembered every detail of that visit from when he was talking to me on the fone from Germany!

Well, hope you enjoyed the little story. Will be talking about the story of Ilyasu Ishiaku next. Its kinda interesting, too.