Emma Okocha
1 July 2008
opinion
"In a match with everything at stake, Nigeria lost an opportunity to announce its entry into the super power bloc of great nations of athletes.
Austin Okocha, again proved his class ....the only artist in that whole team that is capable of reaching the heights of the descendants of the soccer gods"
(Emma Okocha, USA Africa, Special World Cup Edition, Fall,1994)
He is irreplaceable. He was the ultimate guy as far as proving people wrong over and over again, when they kind of stuck a fork in him. He had an aura, a charisma.....he transcends the sport"
"To lose somebody like him is obviously a shame for the game. Guys like him don't come around too often."
(Andy Roddick and Andy Murray pay their tribute to Andre Agassi who recently retired from Tennis.)
Very rarely in Football, a player emerges belonging not to a club or country but to the world. Thus, such a player, multi-talented and such a joy to watch, inspires admiration universally, irrespective of chauvinistic allegiance.
The crowd turns up to see his performance and partisan feelings are forgotten. Pele was the immortal, Maradona the gift from the gods.
Elsewhere, we see other iconic comparisons as Golf recorded the mythical figures of American Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, the richest athlete of his time who had won seven majors. Right on their course, was the incomparable Jack Nicklaus.
In one day at the Cherry Hills Golf course at Ben Hogan's farewell, the matchless and legendary play of these champions redefined the game.
Palmer's dexterity, Hogan's pot perfection and though a newcomer, Jack Nicklaus performance which, nearly won him his first open, all combined to transform the genteel countryside sports to the public sport..
Few decades later, enter the Tiger Woods phenomenon, another gift of the gods! Before then there was the Muhammad Ali and his train. Whenever that train travelled to, it was the greatest show on earth.
On the night of the 'Rumble In the Jungle' the night he sent the Reverend gentleman, George Foreman nearer to Jesus, 'Ali Bomaye' i.e Ali Kill him , was the emotional one-sided support he got from the Zairen brothers who really wanted Foreman dead for daring to stand against their idol.
In Tennis, there are a couple of legends we may have seen in Wimbledon the Australian and the US Opens. You must have heard of Jimmy Connors,.Pete Sampras, Andrew Agassi, Roger Federer etc.
At this point I remember the Swiss double fisted backhander who has been compared to John Lennon. Bjorn Borg, like Jay Jay Okocha, is a transcendental figure whose charisma and the originality catapulted him into broad public consciousness.
As precocious children quickly learn, they are often the centre of attraction,which they come to enjoy.
They feed on that attention and normally engage in positive and negative actions designed to maintain that level of public focus on themselves through their lives.
In many instances precocious children are often encouraged by older people in their lives who are eager to share some of the limelight .
Jay Jay or Augustine Okocha was not a regular in his class when I was the Foreign and Sports Editor of the provincial Satellite. He didn't like the schoolrooms. His elder brother Emma Okocha was an obscure rookie with the Enugu Vasco Dagama.
The shinning star in that Vasco line-up was the irrepressible 'Congo' and when the three musketeers; the late Chike Akabugo, C.Don. Adinuba and Tony Ndibe strayed in and wanted jobs with Satellite, I instantly without recourse to the managment, offered Mr. Ndibe to report to the G.O.C and ordered him to go after the young man who had the audacity to answer my father's name.!
Before long the desk got to learn that the Okochas from Ogwashi Ukwu are indeed a football family with three of the brothers suffering from deep tyranny of talents.
We continued to be intrigued by the story of the youngest of the brothers. He would shun classes, did not mind knocking the ball around when his mates were marching to school.
He would toss the ball ,pick it up and allow the leather roll down his spine. He would go to bed with the football supporting his head as a pillow.
On the other hand the desk later was to develop a lot of respect for Emma who like Benjy Nzeakor was playing the outside right position without dashing like a 100 meters runner. Cool as cucumber he could dismantle the defence from the outside and if he decides to cut in from the outside to the center, he could as well with little physical efforts get to his destination.
He could carry the ball on his feet; he could head the ball and he could score as well, from the flanks. He was polishing his skills and it was easy predicting that Emma Okocha was going to wear the Eagles shirt and probably would make it abroad.
All those predictions came true. Emma played for the Green Eagles and was already contracted and playing for a German Club when the the story of Jay Jay erupted. Even though he was to join the Rangers like his brother, Jay Jay was not exceptional in the Nigerian league.
It was in Germany, while on a visit to his brother that he exploded. After his immaculate displays, the Germans offered him a shirt,and contracted him with the Entranth Frankfurt. From Frankfurt, the Okochamania was a universal hit.
At a point, the Mayor of Frankfurt was losing elections until he enlisted the help of Jay- Jay. In the few days of round the city campaign with Jay Jay standing behind him, the Mayor saved his elections and was returned by a landslide by the electorate of that German seaport.
A sensation anywhere he goes, Jay Jay is a household name in the African continent. Alighting the Nairobi airport on the eve of the famous 'Battle of Mombasa' I was accosted by a bevy of female undergraduates, who had abandoned their examinations to welcome Jay Jay to Kenya.
They did not care that Jay Jay was to feature for the Nigerian Under 21 against their own national side. The Kenyan immigration was so sure that Jay Jay had arrived and therefore announced my arrival.
There was pandemonium and one of the very pretty tall girls was fighting tears. I was to later learn that she had been at the airport with her mum who incidentally was the second wife of the Vice Chancellor of the Nairobi University. She forced her way and planted a kiss on me.
I promised to return after the match. Otherwise the whole episode was becoming quite a scene. Nobody cared to look at the details. For example, I' Emmanuel Okocha, Jay Jay is Jay Jay or Augustine Okocha..
Even then Jay Jay was coming from Germany, my passport read, port of departure, as Lagos . I was indeed heading to Rwanda as I was writing a paper on the African Conflicts. I was to watch the match, ,record it for N.T A. and slip back to the Rwandan border from Tanzania.
If the Okocha charm is bewitching so much that they mistook me for the footballer , I thought it was okay to fool with them. Jay Jay who actually loves a lot of pretty women should be helped out in times of emergency and uncertainties.
At Mombasa , that was the first time Nigeria's most accomplished player was at his prime playing deep in front of Nigeria's greatest franchise player who was equally at his prime! Nwankwo Kanu flew in from Italy and was striking in front of Jay Jay waho as usual was scheming from the right and center.
I have seen football played by the Brazilians for sheer entertainment. But in that memorable encounter I witnessed that with divine artists in the line up, football can be ballet on grass and the gaols can be executed from every corner with cannons and bazookas from the same nimble feet that had overwhelmed the spectators with their vulnerable mouth watering body movements.
After a spirited resistance the Kenyans fell to superior firepower. After the match,and for the first time since I have been moving all over Africa, reporting football or playing some of it, the home fans came around the Nigerian squad.
Some knelt down some tried to touch or shake the hands of our boys but it looked like half of the whole staduim was moving to the direction of Jay Jay. He was finding it difficult to cross the field to join his fellow players.The fans were in stupor. Quiet and in silent admiration.
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