THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND CREATING TRUE FOOTBALL ANALYSTS

TRUE FOOTBALL ANALYSTS IS UNIQUE

If you have the patience to read this article, you will understand why I talk the way I talk about football. You will also understand why my posts may sometimes get you upset. But most of all, you will realize that I don’t mean to offend you with some of the things that I post about.

My ideals are very different from those of every other football lover I have ever met, and because I have no interest in changing my ideals for anyone, I decided that I needed to have a very unique forum to discuss football with the kind of people that were at least NOT EASILY OFFENDED by my thinking-pattern. 

Because that “thinking-pattern” did not just appear in my head by magic. It was developed by years of INPUTS and OUTPUTS. And other people contributed greatly to it.

So please read carefully as I explain:-

A LONG JOURNEY 

Many years ago, I was a football fanatic. At age 16 sometime in the very early 90s, there were no satellite dishes in my country. I used to watch football when my uncle brought video cassettes of Maradona to our house.

Then came BOP TV (Boputhatswana – a South African cable channel) came to Nigeria, we didn’t immediately get cable in my family, so I used to walk from one part of Unilag campus where I lived to the other end of it, just so that I can watch the Italian Serie A.

Almost all my friends thought I was going nuts because I would occasionally pass on the opportunity to attend a very high profile party with my friends, just so I can walk a long distance to go and watch Torino vs Brescia. ALONE! 

Yeah, I was crazy.

But to me, that meant Martin Vasquez vs Gheorge Hagi; two great footballers that do great things almost every time they touch the ball, so I did it with all of my heart.

And when I would arrive at my friend’s house about 15minutes before kick-off, he and his sisters would already be expecting me. In fact, on some occasions, his youngest sister would have to beg their parents (on my behalf) that SHE wanted to watch Italian football, if their parents were watching CNN at the time I arrived. My friend and his sisters enjoyed watching the way I would run my own side commentary on the matches, and they loved the sound of Italian names and the way I seemed to know every single player's name and surname in the Calcio.

THE RISE OF THE IMPERIAL PREMIER LEAGUE

Now, fast forward to about 1996, and a few other young Nigerians have now gradually started becoming passionate football fans as well.

By now though, they are showing more English Football in Nigeria than any other (thanks to DSTV from South Africa – which has Language, Economic & Political ties the UK).

And also the English League had started purchasing  some old Italian footballers (Vialli, Zola, Casiraghi, Ravanelli, DiMatteo, etc) and some French stars (Robert Pirez, Franck Leboef, Fabian Barthez) among other foreigners.

But suddenly I noticed that the English commentators were making claims like “Eric Cantona deserves to be a starter for France” (ahead of ZIDANE?!?!?) or stuff like “DiMatteo may be better than Albertini for Italy”. And I will be like, ‘Do you ever even see  Albertini play at all’?!!!

And eventhough I wasn’t really getting angry then, I still thought they must have been smoking their studio's disposed Fuji film negatives.

Now fast forward again to 2004, and I now realized beyond a doubt that those English commentators have now become fully on a mission to preach their “English League is superior” message. And because most of us in Nigeria cannot understand French, Spanish or Italian, we cannot hear anyone arguing for the other side. Except those of us who actually watch football with our EYES and not our EARS.

But I still wasn't getting angry yet. Afterall, anyone has a right to market his own product. And if you are lucky, you might even find an audience that will even help you to FIGHT for your product.

My point of difference however, was that I personally chose to pay more attention to the football I was watching with my own eyes, than the commentary I was hearing. So I didn't or couldn't buy the whole "most exciting league" story for one minute.

Yet it was also in this era that I started drifting slightly away from Serie A and slightly closer to LaLiga.

Too many people were politicizing things back then, even Fabio Capello had once been quoted as saying, “In the Spanish LaLiga, they attack like aristocrats, but defend like peasants”. And I used to laugh at Spanish players for this. But I couldn't deny that I had loved their National team almost as much as I loved my Azzuris, Albicelestes, then those Samba boys of Brazil. And as for LaLiga, they naturally played great football, and they attracted some of the most talented stars in the history of the game.

So I also realized that Capello must have said that because Real Madrid’s Board had given him a lot of heat for playing a Counter Attacking style (whenever he met Barca & sometimes Atletico Madrid) instead of our preferred Dribbling, Possessive, Attacking flair.

THINK FOOTBALL, SPEAK FOOTBALL, BUT DO IT OUR WAY! 

So I came to an understanding what that old Coca-Cola advert captured….it said, “eat football, sleep football, dream football, drink coca cola”.

My realization was that there was a conscious effort to indoctrinatethe newer football fans through the media, into not only believing their claims, but also to help them spread the message. So I started meeting Nigerian fans who were aggressively TELLING me that I am wasting my time with Serie A and LaLiga, that I should be watching the Premier League.

But don’t get me wrong, this is STILL not the reason why I decided to creat TFA.

In the year I set up TFA, I had visited Goal.com for the first time because someone shared an article from it to his profile on Facebook. The article was about Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid. And after reading it I felt like vomiting.

This must have been around Round-7 or so into the 2010/2011 season and Real Madrid was leading on points and goal difference. Barca had already lost a home game against Hercules then. So the article said that Real Madrid been transformed by Mourinho, and they were now playing with "swagger". Please, did you even watch any of Madrid's games in the previous season? What the hell does swagger mean?

At that time I wasn’t interested in commenting on the post. I was only thinking ‘when will these clowns stop all the ignorant chatter?’ And why can't they just stick to bragging about what is theirs? I mean, this wasn't a Chelsea Magazine bragging about their former employee. This were sports journalist that were supposed to be disseminating information about football. But instead of that, they were trying to pitch a miserable idea that Mourinho was coming from the EPL to save Madrid from the dungeon that Barcelona had kept them.

Even those of us who are true Madrid supporters know that we need to wait until it's at least 4 points gap before we start getting cocky or celebrating. Now these hangers-on from the EPL are trying to get us jinxed. (Hangers-on despite that Mourinho has no trace of British-blood in him and he spent only 3 years in England for crying out loud. They may have a little more RIGHT to claim Arsene Wenger, eventhough I can still remember when he was manager at Nantes, or was it PSG? OK I can't remember the particular club. lol) 

Anyway to cut the long story short, about 5 or 6 Rounds later, Barca hammered Mourinho (NOT MADRID) 5-0, so I immediately went over to goal.com to see what they had to say about that one.

...“oh! Mourinho needs time to get his team together. This is only his first season. Barca are playing their best football ever. Blah blah blah”. Yeah right! So how did Hercules beat them 2-0 at Camp Nou? And why did all of this details slip your mind earlier. Dumbo!

Anyway, fast forward to our 2-0 defeat at Benabeu to the same Barca at the Champions League. And the Goal.com posts became too much for me to ignore, so I decided to join and start commenting:

I never used a F-bomb or any other curse word, nor did I insult anyone. I only pointed out why Jose Mourinho was NOT the messiah they were making him out to be. And I corrected the authors about referee bias, when he was claiming that Barca players were diving and acting. My simple take was that you cannot keep attacking footballers with taekwon-do kicks and clothes-lines and expect them to join you in a contest of mixed-martial arts. They prefered to play football instead of fight with us. And of course, if they see a mad man charging towards them to inflict pain, even I will encourage them to use whatever tactic to avoid getting injured and losing the ball. Thank you Coach Gus D'Amato!

Meanwhile my comments would immediately generate lots of likes as well as dislikes. (I guess the likes were from Barca fans anyway) So I started getting some positive and negative responses from the other members. 

But after a while, I noticed that my comments were either being removed, or not even allowed to pass through moderation. So I decided to do an experiment:

I would post a comment that criticizes a Spanish LaLiga player that has NOT played in the EPL (like Pepe, or Marcelo), and just like I expected, they did not delete those comments. The ones that were deleted were the ones that had something AGAINST Mourinho, Cristiano Ronaldo or Fabregas. 

And Oh yes! They also DELETED my long comment where I praised and analyzed Pep Guardiola's rise to success (how he completely revamped the star-studded side he inherited from Rijkaard, and turned it into a youthful, Spanish dominated, cohesive engine). Unlike them, I believe that a good football report should be TRUTHFUL. But if you hate the other team so much, and you don't want to tell the truth, then it is better for you NOT to write a report in the first place. Simple!

So I realized that mingling too long with the clowns on that forum would eventually turn me into a confused person, so I decided to create a forum for people who love football for the purity of football itself; People who are not interested in promoting any particular agenda......OR people who are interested in promoting the LATIN football agenda.

YES! Now you know! It was created to target a niche.

But I am not saying that lovers of the EPL are not welcome to post, or that your posts about Man Utd would be deleted. I would never do that. 

Because I am a man!!! I'm not a goal.com moderator! I'm a man!

I am not AFRAID of anything an EPL fan has to say....

It is never anything more than the "2-Horse" race argument anyway.

But in all honesty, TFA is not about arguing about Leagues. It is about a man who is lending a voice to Latin football in the midst of Anglo-imperialistic mind-control. I noticed they don't have much beef with the Bundesliga, and I can understand why they chose not to. 

Still, all I am saying is that my primary motive for this Group is to give English speaking LaLiga & Serie A fans a place where they would feel more at home. Because I know that they have been brutally bastardized by Skysports (and other English) commentators for many years. And because Skysports has the Disney company of America as a major stake-holder, it has become a media giant that has an unfair advantage over the likes of Rai Italia, and whoever the primary distributor of LaLiga is.

 

YET EPL FANS REMAIN WELCOME

So I invited a Barca fan, a Bayern fan, an Atletico Madrid fan, and even a Man Utd fan to be moderators on the forum. My plan was to get an AC Milan fan later on. But that hasn't really worked out.

But at some point, people started to complain that there is too much talk about LaLiga, and that I should change the name to LaLiga Football Analysts. And my response was that instead of complaining they should post stuff about their own Premiership clubs and generate interest by themselves, because I for one, am very thankful that this forum is different from all the other forums out there where everyone is going on and on about Chelsea and Man Utd.

Because, if you are observant you would notice that a lot of Premiership fans are still here. And they post stuff about Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea. Even I myself, sometimes do a small thing about a Premiership game where I managed to see the highlights sometimes.

Unfortunately Facebook Groups are not like Google+ communities where you can create specific segments for your topics (like different segments for LaLiga, Premiership, Bundesliga). That would have been the best, so that some of you will just restrict yourselves to the area where your preferred league is being discussed.

But the point is, up till today, I still DON'T enjoy watching Premiership matches, except some Man City games and maybe the occasional Arsenal/Swansea highlights I might catch sometimes. In fact, there are some LaLiga games I can't watch as well. Sevilla sometimes plays some annoying football these days. But generally speaking, I can’t stand football where defenders think they must boot every ball out of their defense, and where wingers 85% of the time try to RUN PAST every marker that challenges them at the byline. 

But that’s just me. I love red wine. Not fond of white wine much. Can’t stand rose anymore. Its how it is. So it is important that everyone understands that my posts will reflect this preferences. And you ABSOLUTELY HAVE THE RIGHT to disagree with me. But try to keep that disagreement civil. You don't have to chop off my head for not liking what you like.

The difference here is that while they would delete many of my posts on Goal.com every time I challenged their theories with hard facts; on this forum I would allow anything you post to speak for itself and prove itself. But I would not allow anyone to begin to insult anyone else, just because he feels he is losing an argument. That's the only part that gets to me.

THE NUMBER GAMES

Now a friend of mine has challenged me saying that the Group wouldn’t grow if I did it this way because everybody is an EPL fan. But for me, I will rather have conversations with 18 people who love football, than 2,000,000 people that chorus the same thing they heard from the jokers on ESPN Soccrenet.

But thanks to my SEO knowledge in Digital Marketing, I have been fortunate to understand that relevance on the internet depends on many things other than numbers. So having 10,000 members is not my goal for TFA. It is more about creating as pure digital product. Unique; Consistent; REAL. 

If things go well, each individual member of TFA could become a globally recognized football pundit in the future. But that would depend on how active you are sharing your analyses on the forum as well as in your own blogs. It may also depend on whether you use Google+ actively. :-)....

(If you would like to know more about how I came about this, inbox me)

FINALLY

If my stance bothers anybody, I am really sorry about it. But that person should realize that I have felt even more oppressed by the unprofessional, biased and uninformed English commentary that I have been hearing for decades. And Facebook and Google+ have now given me my opportunity to take a tiny mite back. The future of Google+ is quite bright indeed for people like me (who have a small voice compared to the British Media Empire) and I intend to take full advantage of it, starting from here. Again I apologize. :-)

I have been treated much more roughly by Goal.com, The Goal Group on Facebook, and ESPNsoccernet.com. I am out-numbered every day in my country: They provoke me into arguments anytime they see me watching a LaLiga game. They won't let me watch it in peace. It's always the same sh** over and over again, as if by constantly telling me, that that will suddenly transform me into a Chelsea fan.

So for the last time, please learn to forgive my over-inclination towards latin football. Know that there is a deep history behind it, and realize that you are free to promote whatever football or football league that you like on TFA, and I will not stop you. But if an argument should ever break out, please try to keep your emotions in check, and try not to kill yourself for a football league or club. I do not believe in being anything....for Life! 

So I will never really understand anyone that attacks me or any other memeber for the sake of a football club or player.

This is True Football Analysts. 

Not Football Idol Worshippers.

Thanks for understanding. 

BALLON D'or CONSPIRACY THEORISTS - Listen Up!

People keep saying that FIFA loves some footballers and hate others. Or that some players won this trophy while others did not win that. Or so some deserve this while others don't deserve that. 

But most of the people who are making these arguments sometime leave out FACTS and ANALYSIS as they embark on their journey to change the world.

And so because this is "TRUE FOOTBALL ANALYST" and not "LOYAL FOOTBALL FAN" Page, I will try once again, to help some of you change the way you are thinking about at this whole thing:

CONCERNING THE BALLON D'OR AWARD

1. No one gives the award to anyone. There is a voting process. But NOT like American Idol or MTV Awards, where a bunch of teenage girls can just bring out their mobile phones and begin to vote numerous times for One Direction & Lil' Wayne types as the BEST musicians in the world.

This is more like the Oscar Awards where the professionals of the industry do the voting. Film Producers, Actors, Directors & Film Writers are the ones who choose who the BEST ACTORS are. And many "FANS" don't like this. They are often angry because Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and Arnold Schwarzenegger have never won an Oscar despite the billions that their films have made at the Box Office. Meanwhile some "relatively" unknown actors like Daniel Day Lewis have won Best Actor THREE times, while new comers like Christoph Waltz already have 2 Oscars.

Personally, I am very happy with the way the Oscars winners are chosen so I am quite happy with the way Ballon D'Or is chosen. I know what could happen if FIFA throws it open to millions of half-baked football fans around the world.

Why Not The Fans?

Three sets of people's opinions are valued much higher than the opinions of the millions of fans who watch football for all sorts of reasons:
Reasons like,  
a) My friends have a favorite club, so I must have one as well.
b) I am in love with Ozil's girlfriend, a supermodel, so he is my favorite footballer.
c) I am an African, therefore I must keep up with African footballers to promote them.
d) There is a lot of poverty in my country, so football is the opium of the poor.

So because of these and many other mundane reasons, I cannot see it as a wise thing to let ALL THE FANS select the World's Best player.

Hence I am more comfortable with FIFA's design to have it trusted to the PROFESSIONALS OF THE INDUSTRY:

Every country that his recognized by FIFA (including Paraguay, Wales, Japan, Burkina Faso & Malta) is represented by 
1) Their National Team Captain
2) Their National Team Manager
3) A Representative from their national Media.

An excellent design in my opinion.

Although it is an Individual Award and shouldn't be solely based on how many trophies your team won during the year, There is still a way that it reflects on the clubs. For me, it proves how great a club is, and its ability to attract the greatest players in the game.

Because if you had left it to ALL of the media that reports on football, then the English speaking media which dominates the world (thanks to AMERICA, but which works, in terms of football, for England) would likely give Ballon D'or every year to Wayne Rooney or Gareth Bale.

Also, If you left it ONLY to players, then some collective "beef" could begin to show for some particular players. 
So Managers and selected Sports Press are added there to balance things. And everyone is advised to CHOOSE according to "EXCELLENCE" NOT "nationality".

The Error Of Relying On The Trophy Cabinet

Another thing I REALLY have to point out about Ballon D'or.....

It is NOT an Award for a SEASON!
It is an Award for a calendar Year!

The European Player of the Year Award that Ribery recently won was for a SEASON. This is the Award that naturally has a higher regard for Trophies won during the season. 
But there is still a lot of football still to be played after those trophies have been won, and this is why Ballon D'or winners may not necessarily win trophies in the year they won. It didn't start with Lionel Messi.

Another thing you must understand is that individual players are incapable of winning a trophy. Only teams, in fact, ENTIRE squads can.


In fact, I was once guilty of this assumption too. When Ronaldinho won the Award in 2004, I thought Deco was robbed. But then Deco moved to Barcelona with Ronaldinho, and for the rest of the year, the difference in their performance was quite clear. 
Deco wasn't even in the Top three of the Barcelona squad of that period, if you ask me. There was Ronaldinho, there was Eto, and there was a budding young talent called Messi. And these three did all of the heavy lifting. So Deco had 2 consecutive Europe & Portuguese league trophies, but Ronaldinho had phenomenal football on his side. 

Then, there is the Wes Sneider argument as well. For those people who felt that Wesley Sneider deserved to win the Ballon D'or for 2010 instead of Messi. 
Well, for me, I could have made a small case for Xavi. But not the dutch man. Because, again, individually he was not so outstanding in 2010. He scored some good freekicks and made some nice assists when Inter won the Champions League, but Diego Milito and Samuel Eto were slightly more impressive for me. 

Also Holland getting to the World Cup Final was not very fair for Brazil, who were robbed of a clean goal (ruled off as offside) after dominating a match where the referee allowed Holland players to rough-handle the Brazilians. But this even encouraged Sneider's teammates to use even rougher tactics in the Final. It was an eyesaw.  If a decent referee had officiated that match, Holland would have had 2 players sent off before the end of the first half. And then we would see if they wouldn't have been hammered 4-0 or something.

But most of all, again, Inter's overall performance after the Summer Break was very poor. And that was really what (in my opinion) killed Sneider's case for the Ballon D'or. But Messi continued to score and assist goals at will from the start of the new season.

See?
An Individual Award! Also an Award for the Calendar Year, NOT the previous season. (try to understand that part - it's a vital part most people miss)

I hope some of you are finally beginning to understand this now. It is not according to how you feel. It is according to how the National team captains and managers judge the people that they play against from time to time, and see on a regular basis. I remember a time (early 90s) when I was a huge Juventus fan. I sometimes literally prayed for AC Milan to lose important matches so that my Juventus would rise to the top of Serie A. But at the last minute, that crook Van Basten pops up with a heart-shattering and spectacular volley to give all the points (then just 2) to Milan. And I am left sulking. But I am sometimes PARTLY comforted at the end of the season, when Roberto Baggio wins the Award of Calcio Best Player, despite Milan taking the title by up to 7 points gap.

The judgment is that Gullit, Rijkaard, Donadoni, and Massaro "diluted" Van Basten's greatness. But Baggio did it all for Juve:- Top Scorer. Top Assister. Most Flair. And another attribute that many don't take notice of. Ability to command the FEAR of your opponents on the pitch. You see this in players who, more often than others, draw 2 to 3 defenders to themselves when they hold the ball. 
(pay attention particularly to Isco, Ribery and Zlatan Ibrahimovic when they hold the ball - the "other guy" doesn't need to be mentioned, so I do not incur the wrath of my friends).

I would prefer him to win this one. But I am not contradicting myself by saying that Ribery won many trophies, AND HAS also really dazzled very brightly at the start of this season.

Someone has to give this little guy some fashion tips. For real!

Referees Are Human, So Are Ballon D'Or Voters

Again, I must point out that while I don't think the FIFA method is fool-proof, I still insist that it is the best way I could have come up with.
In fact, I probably wouldn't have come up with it on my own. So I applaud them for keeping it "Pro".

I am a Nigerian, we speak English and we watch SuperSport - A South African channel that is dominated by British sports journalists and ex-footballers.
So you can bet that many of my people think there is some FIFA conspiracy in favor LaLiga and against England-based footballers. Some even use the word..."racism".
I have to spend time explaining to some of them that Cristiano Ronaldo (Brazillian-Portugues) and Jose Mourinho are latin footballers as well. So if FIFA were so racist, then it would probably be Van Persey, Schweinsteiger and Bale that would be running for this year's Award.

But the truth is that you have to have the Best people selecting the BEST.
For example, as a Digital Marketer, I will hate it if someone who doesn't even understand the true meaning of Social Media Marketing was given the power to choose the best Digital Marketers in the World. 
he could just go out and choose the name that he hears being mentioned the most. Because his understanding of digital marketing is very limited.
Can you see what I mean?

Yes, we know that there are some fans who really KNOW THEIR FOOTBALL (trust me, I am one of them). But how do we separate them from the millions of ignorant "fanboys" who will twist and turn every statement to suit the guy that they idolize?

Look at this...
A few years ago, a survey was carried out in Brazil where they asked LOCAL Brazilian players to select the best players in the World. They made it a "secret ballot" (that means people don't know who you voted for) so it gave the players a chance to speak their true feelings. In the end, it shocked everyone that Messi beat Neymar and CRonaldo to win the majority of the votes.....professional footballers in BRAZIL!
Think about it. If it had been merely Brazilian fans, you can bet that perhaps even Juan Mata would have beaten Messi there.

Another important thing that you should consider about the HUMAN SIDE OF THE VOTE.

When Jose Mourinho claimed that FIFA cheated for Del Bosque in the last vote (I was actually STUNNED that he would think he achieved better), it was NOT the first time he was accusing FIFA of rigging something. 
And because of him, FIFA did something that many of us think is not good. They revealed everyone's votes for the world to see.....(Check Out The Breakdown Of Voters Here - Again Professionals)

What finally settled it was that this forced the Football Federation of Goran Pandev's country to apologize for changing his vote for Mourinho into a vote for Del Bosque. 

So it made me realize that FIFA and the Tooth Fairy may not be out to get him; but at least now he knows that the Macedonian FA is! But it also made Mourinho look much more annoying in the eyes of some people who are already tired of his antics. 

And what he, and most of his devoted fans may fail to see is that he has consistently creating a stigma for himself with all of his complaints against referees, FIFA, UEFA, Spanish FA, and the Ku Klux Klan. This may win him points with some lily-livered referees and most of his fans. But these are not the people doing the voting. Professionals could interpret this behavior in another way, while they observe other players & managers quietly doing their thing and letting their FOOTBALL speak for them. 

So who's it gonna be? Surely not Messi this time!

Conclusion

For me, eventhough I personally think Cristiano Ronaldo should win This Year's Award. It is not necessarily because he deserves it more than Ribery. I think he does deserve it more than Messi this time though. 

Why I would pick him is purely because he has been shortlisted for the past 4 years or so. To be honest, looking at both of them, I still see a little bit more of the kind of football that pumps my blood in Ribery's game. But I would give it to Ronaldo because he has been consistently close to the Top for a while longer than just the past year. But the national team captain of Chile may disagree, as well as the national coach of Germany.



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The Real Madrid. The Real Madridsta

The most interesting thing about football is not the fact that every nation in the world has millions of fanatical fans for it,
it is the fact that these fans have probably the most intensely subjective kind of affection for the game as you would ever find anywhere. I know what I am saying, trust me.

But I am not saying it is a bad thing.
Ohhh! Not at all.
I think people will really start enjoying their football, when they can be completely honest with themselves. Instead of minding so much, what other people think of them.
Are you tired of supporting a team that rarely ever wins anything? Then by all means, switch to another! Even the players who are payed millions of dollars by these clubs are not so loyal to them, why should you be?
Think about it.

For me, I don't give a rat's a## anymore.
Yeah! I used to be a confused "loyalist".
As a Juve fan, I must hate Torino.
As a Roma fan, I must hate Lazio.
As a Madridsta, I must hate the catalan club, Barcelona.
blah blah blah.

And I actually did hold my hatred for Barcelona for many years,
until Pep Guardiola (with lots of help from the legendary Lionel Messi) changed all that for me in his second season at Barca. And I will always be grateful to his purist/fundamentalist football tactics for restoring my interest in football.

Anyway, for me, it started long ago when I saw Maradonna dribble his way through several Brazillian midfielders in the 1982 World Cup. I was just a kid then, but I knew I was going to be watching a whole lot of this game from that moment on.

Then came the era when my elder bother's friend came into the house with a video collection of Maradona's games at his Italian club Napoli. In some of those clips, I saw how some other "unknown" stars made him look human on some occassions. 
Those unknown stars (unknown to me at the time) were young gifted players like Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Roberto Baggio and Enzo Francescoli.

But things got completely out of hand after I saw these guys play at the Italia 90 World Cup. 
It was amazing! My life was changed forever.

It was in that world cup that I discovered a certain bearded fellow called Martin Vasquez of Spain.
It was just one game. he didn't score a goal, he didn't assist a goal.
It was just about his dribbling and close control of the ball that did it for me. I was hooked!
I stopped asking for Maradona tapes, and started searching for Martin Vasquez. 
But unfortunately, nobody knew who the heck he was. And there was no Google. No Youtube. :( 

Then I found a Nigerian tv station that was showing old matches from the Spanish Professional League. And there he was......

Martin Vasquez, without the beard, in a club called Real Madrid. And that was how I became a Madridsta.
It started from teenage years. 
But I have grown up now.
Never been to Madrid, never visited Spain.
Barcelona plays great football now, so I cannot hate them anymore.
I have changed.
I have loved Juventus, Lazio, Roma and even Sampdoria since I first became a Madridista.

People make fun of me here in Nigeria, but I am the one who's truly laughing. What should it really take to give your loyalty to something? Or someone?  

I don't think I owe Real Madrid anything anymore. 
I still support the club, and will probably forever have a soft-spot for it.  
However, I realize I have really loved football more than anything else. And that is exactly what I hope to maintain. 

If the Vikings can keep giving me great football, then fine! If they go back to the Mourinho days of negative, taekwon-do football? Then I will spit bile once again. :D