International Football
Beach Soccer: FIFA Highlights Nigeria’s Captain, Olawale
For a man who prefers the 11-a-side version to the five-man game, Isiaka Olawale has achieved quite a lot in beach soccer. On Thursday, the 33-year-old will captain Nigeria at the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017.
In an interview with FIFA.com, the Nigerian looks forward to the tournament. “Qualifying for the finals was not easy,” Olawale said.
“We have not made it for the last two tournaments and being beaten in the semi-finals by Senegal in the Seychelles and missing out on qualifying for the finals in Portugal was very painful. In 2013, we were also beaten by Senegal in the last four. So we were very determined.
“For the qualifying tournament this time around, we recalled some of the older players. As captain of the team, I spoke to the players and told them this is a great opportunity. The African championships were in our country, so we had a lot of advantages.”
As hosts, the Super Sand Eagles were seeded into Group A, where they faced Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt and Ghana. “This was not an easy group,” Olawale said. “Côte d’Ivoire and Egypt are regularly in the semi-finals and Ghana is not a bad team either. But we wanted to avoid facing Senegal again, so we thought that we had to win our group.”
Although they lost their second group match on penalties to rivals Cote d’Ivoire, they benefited from the West African’s defeat against Egypt in their final game, thus giving Nigeria top place and a semi-final match-up against Morocco.
A comfortable 6-1 win saw them through to the final, but more importantly, it also gave them a place at the world finals in the Bahamas. Although they lost the championship match to Senegal, they had achieved their main goal.
In the Bahamas, Nigeria will be playing in Group B will be challenging Iran, Italy and Mexico for a place in the knockout stages.
“All the teams we will be facing are very, very good teams,” Olawale said. “However, and I say that with the utmost of respect to our opponents, we don’t have to overestimate anybody.
“We will take each match as it comes. But we will try our very best. We have to be at our best if we want to make it through to the next round. We have faced some of the teams before and we know that any team that has qualified for the World Cup deserves to be there.”
Bahamas 2017 will be the fourth time that Olawale competes in the showpiece event of beach soccer, having been in the Nigerian team at the 2007 finals in Brazil, the 2009 edition in the United Arab Emirates and the last time the Super Sand Eagles made it through in 2011, when Italy hosted the tournament.
Like many other beach soccer players, Olawale started out in the traditional game, but unlike many others, he still competes at the highest level, turning out for El Kanemi Warriors in the Nigerian top flight.
“When I was playing for WA Tlemcen in Algeria, we would often train on the beach and I realised I was good at it,” he said.
“When I returned to Nigeria in 2006, I was asked to join the national beach soccer team and it was an opportunity I was not going to miss, even though my heart is with 11-a-side game.”
Super Eagles aspirations
But it was not only on the beach that he had an opportunity to represent his country, as he was also capped by the Super Eagles.
“When Berti Vogts was coach, he called me up and I played a few games for Nigeria,” Olawale said.
“I have not given up playing for them again, but I have to be realistic. There are many good Nigerian midfielders and it will not be easy for me to get into the side.”
He joined Warriors last year, but was restricted from playing for the club after his previous team Giwa FC ran into financial difficulties. “I did not want to risk anything, so I have only started playing a few weeks ago.”
Asked which form of the Beautiful Game he prefers, he hesitates, but only for a few seconds. “The game played on grass,” he said. “That drew me to the sport and that is what I prefer. But I am grateful for everything that I have been able to achieve through beach soccer.
“Playing beach soccer is very different from playing the other game. Beach soccer is so much more physical. You need to be a strong individual player to play beach soccer. In an 11-a-side game, if one of your team-mates is not doing well, he can still be carried along by the rest of the team.
A new trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.
An enduring presence in Argentina – from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab – Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almiron, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna. An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.
Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafane, have already testified.
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.
The defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.
-Reuters
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Aliou Cisse has been named coach of the Angola national team, the country’s football federation (FAF) announced on Thursday, 24 hours after the Senegalese left his post in Libya.
The 50-year-old coach, who led Senegal to their maiden Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, ended his short stint with the Libyan national team on Wednesday, after taking charge in March 2025.
“Welcome, Aliou Cisse, head coach of the Angola national team,” the FAF said on Facebook. Angola, which failed to reach this year’s World Cup, will start their 2027 AFCON qualifying campaign in September.
-Reuters
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Nigeria’s Super Eagles were held to a 2-2 draw by FIFA World Cup-bound Jordan in an eventful international friendly in Antalya on Tuesday night, with the contest overshadowed by a late red card to Alex Iwobi.
Iwobi, making his 98th appearance for the national team, was sent off in the closing stages, capping a dramatic encounter in which Nigeria surrendered a first-half lead and finished the game with ten men.
The match, played at the Mardan Sports Complex, brought Nigeria’s March international window to a close, but it proved anything but routine as both sides delivered a fiercely contested and entertaining clash.
Jordan, ranked 64th in the world and enjoying strong recent form, struck first in the 17th minute through Mousa Tamari. A well-worked free-kick routine caught the Nigerian defence napping, allowing the forward to fire home the opener.
Nigeria responded quickly and thought they had equalised six minutes later when Raphael Onyedika finished from a Moses Simon cut-back, but the goal was controversially ruled out.
The Super Eagles eventually drew level in the 30th minute. Stand-in captain Moses Simon, earning his 97th cap, reacted fastest after Ademola Lookman’s effort was blocked, slotting home with a composed left-footed finish for his second goal in as many matches.
Nigeria went ahead four minutes before halftime when Bright Osayi-Samuel’s pinpoint cross found debutant Emmanuel Fernandez, who showed great composure to control and finish, giving the three-time African champions a 2-1 lead at the interval.
The second half took on a more physical tone, with goalkeeper Francis Uzoho forced off in the 57th minute after sustaining an injury while clearing the ball. Adebayo Adeleye replaced him between the posts.
Head coach Eric Chelle introduced Wilfred Ndidi and Alex Iwobi to shore up the midfield, but Jordan continued to press and were rewarded with an equaliser in the 77th minute.
Nigeria pushed for a winner late on, handing a senior debut to Philip Otele, while Samuel Chukwueze came on for Moses Simon. However, the closing moments were marred by Iwobi’s dismissal, leaving the Super Eagles to see out the match with ten men.
Despite the draw, the encounter offered valuable insights for the coaching crew as Nigeria continues preparations for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
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