football announced himself to the world with a
performance of consummate perfection.
It is impossible to recount the legend of Nwankwo
Kanu without reference to the 1996 Olympics. More
specifically, that semi-final against Brazil in
Georgia. On this day 19 years ago, the long-limbed
native of Owerri left a giant print in world football, a
day before his 20th birthday.
With the score at 3-2 in favour of the South
Americans and time ebbing away, Nigeria won a
throw-in deep in Brazilian territory.
To say “the rest was history” is insulting to the
purity of Kanu’s art, a blight in a field of cotton.
The rest was more than just history—history is
imprisoned by the past and often embellished or
diluted, altered by the bias, negative or positive, of
the medium by which it is propagated. What Kanu
did was not history; it was impossible to improve
upon and impossible to detract from. It is timeless,
ageless, the truest magic; not of sleight but of
stardust.
Jay-Jay Okocha, that arch-entertainer, picked the
ball up, his back against the advertising hoarding,
moist from the exertions of a gruelling 90 minutes.
Having contrived to miss a penalty earlier in the
game, this was more than a final throw of the dice.
It was a chance at redemption.
There is nothing more agricultural than the long
throw. There is no design to it, save to heave in
the general direction of the six-yard box and hope
for the best. Odd then that a player of Okocha’s
sophistication would wield such a crude tool, and
that so effectively; two years later, he would
similarly play a part in another memorable strike,
that time from Sunday Oliseh.
This, however, was Kanu-time.
In came the booming projectile, and it sailed over
the head of a straining Wilson Oruma. As a
symbolism, it was sardonically apt. Oruma and
Kanu had lit up the U-17 World Championship in
1993, but the former would spend his playing days
perpetually in Okocha’s shadow, straining vainly to
touch the elusive brilliance of Jay-Jay.
As it turned out, the jump did enough to put off Ze
Elias, and almost disconcerted Teslim Fatusi
behind, who did not anticipate the miss. Still,
football lives in the margins, and is tolerant toward
imperfection—had Oruma won the header, the
move would have broken down.
Instead, Fatusi managed to right himself and, with
a touch like Velcro, kill the ball in a crowded
penalty area. This was however one of those times
when the control was too good; having done the
hard part, he made a complete hash of his next
two touches, failing to dig it out from under his
feet in time.
In the end, he barely toe-poked in the vague
direction of the goal. Still there was enough
purchase to get it through to Kanu, who up until
that point had busied himself obscuring Dida’s
view. This would ultimately prove pivotal.
As the ball rolled to Kanu, he flicked the ball up
slightly to his left with his right foot. His position,
shielding Dida from the play with his massive
frame, panicked the Brazil goalkeeper. Rather than
stay on his feet and observe, he elected to lunge at
the ball, seeking to cut it off at source. It proved
the wrong decision; Kanu swivelled elegantly and
fired into the net as Dida went down.
A moment that famous Brazilian commentator
Bueno Galvao's words etched into that country's
football history with the words, “ Olha o Kanu, ele é
perigoso, entrou, bateu, acabou ” - Look at Kanu,
he's dangerous, he's got the ball, he shoots, it's
over!
It was done in a flash, watch it and you might only
blink once. Yet in that instant, ‘Papilo’- the
butterly - tottered out of his cocoon and spread his
dainty wings. It took little more than five minutes
of play to affirm the metamorphosis, as he took out
the Brazilians early in extra-time. It would become
a ubiquitous theme in his career—the ability to
deliver emphasis with a sigh.
In a career that spanned 16 years at senior
international level, there were moments of rapture
aplenty; none more typical than in Nigeria’s
opening game at the 2000 Afcon against Tunisia.
Every touch divine, every flick precise, Kanu’s
lanky frame carried him into the ether in Lagos,
and he breathed an air so rarefied and godly that it
was impossible to live with him. He laid on three
assists in a 4-2 victory, and none was more
sublime than his back-heeled flick on the edge of
the area for Victor Ikpeba to finish.
It was a perfect display of what Papilo had
become. Never the paciest, his game grew
increasingly cerebral, and by 2000 he was the
perfect no. 10, dropping off the front line to pick up
the ball and prompt play. Yet, for all his balletic
brilliance, that game against Tunisia also
showcased starkly the one blot on a gleaming
career: he never did manage a goal for Nigeria in a
senior international tournament.
Tijani Babangida’s delightful cross saw Kanu stoop
and head over from just inside the six-yard box,
with the score at 4-1. He hit the turf and stayed
there, sent hurling back down to the earth like a
bolt of thunder from heaven.
Perhaps we judge him too harshly on that record;
there is, after all, only so long a mortal can
glimpse the divine before the strain breaks the
physical body. Kanu’s greatness was that he was
able to visit that realm, and to do it with such
frequency.
GOAL.COM
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