#football

Somewhere in Istanbul, Victor Osimhen sat in front of a camera, looked into the eyes of thousands of fans watching his livestream, and said what every Nigerian already knew but nobody wanted to hear out loud.

There is a particular kind of pain that only Nigerian football fans truly understand. It is not the pain of a bad team — Nigeria has never had a bad team. It is the pain of a great team that keeps falling short. The pain of watching players who perform brilliantly for their European clubs arrive at an Africa Cup of Nations and somehow produce performances that bear no resemblance to what their club managers see every week. The pain of potential — enormous, undeniable, world-acknowledged potential — that refuses to convert itself into the continental glory that Nigeria's football talent so obviously deserves.