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“Form is temporary, class is permanent.” One of football’s
great truisms. In the hour of need, it’s to players of genuine
class that you must turn, for they are the players who can do the
unlikely, create the improbable, perform the impossible.
In Kanu, West Bromwich Albion have such a man, a player of impeccable
pedigree, a footballer of genuine international class who has won
medals on the world stage and in club football too, a man who’s
been there, done that. He’s also a man of quiet intensity,
a man who is desperately keen to show the Albion faithful just what
he can do on a sustained basis, and a man who wants more from himself
and from his club. He’s a man on a mission.
Kanu has always been a figure on whom many people have hung their
hopes. Perhaps it’s always the same for any player who emerges
from the continent of Africa – a man who hails from Owerri
and enters the world game on the world stage carries very different
expectations from those he has left behind to a man who comes from
Birmingham.
For African stars such as Kanu and colleagues such as Celestine
Babayaro and Jay Jay Okocha shine a light on a part of the world
that has long been neglected by popular culture, which is still
a mystery to many and which is still shamelessly exploited by the
developed world.
The success of Kanu and his colleagues in the Nigerian “Super
Eagles” has put his country on the world map, has made it more
than just some former colonial outpost, but instead has made people
think of it as vibrant nation that has a part to play in the new
world order that politicians are so fond of espousing. Nigeria is
still a young country, having only gained independence from the
UK back in 1960, following which it barely merited mention, a forgotten
nation on a continent the west tried to keep in the dark as it busily
pillaged the country’s natural resources, notably oil.
Just as the nations of South America have claimed the world’s
spotlight through sport, so too have some African
countries, most notably Nigeria. Kanu, widely acknowledged as the
most successful Nigerian footballer in history, has played a full
part in that development, taking his place amid a magnificent generation
of footballing talent. Those players have changed the way we think
about African football and even Africa itself, but as Kanu recalls,
it’s been a change that started in a very humble fashion.
“In Nigeria, we do not have any structure like there is in
Europe for football, no big club teams that train young players.
You just start to play when you are a kid, like you do anywhere
in the world, but there you are playing in the streets and in your
local area, the neighbourhood.
We have school football of course, so I played for my school, and
then I played for a local team, Iwuanyanwu Nationale, but once people
saw that I could play well, I always had to think that I would have
to go and leave Nigeria to become successful in the game. You have
to go to Europe to make a career, because you cannot do that at
home.
It is everybody’s dream to do that as a young boy, because
that is how you become a better player, by being in the best competitions.
And it means that you can secure a better standard of living which
is important when you come from a country like Nigeria. You can
help your family if you are successful and that is a great thing
to be able to do.”
Kanu’s big break came in the summer of 1993 when Fanny Amun,
the coach of Nigeria’s under-17 side, spotted him and brought
him into the squad for the Under-17 World Championships. Few could
have expected just what a far reaching decision that would prove
to be, least of all the players in the Nigerian squad.
“Playing for Nigeria’s under-17 side in the world tournament
was so exciting. When we went to take part, we didn’t have
any idea about what was going to happen, or if we would be able
to do well. We knew we were a good team and we had good players
but we were going to play against many nations who we know have
great talent, who had won tournaments in the past, so it was very
new. But all the way along, we saw ourselves progressing and progressing.”
Kanu progressed perhaps quickest of all, lighting up the tournament
with some virtuoso football that carried his side further and further
on through the competition.
“Suddenly, we are in the final and we won the competition,
beating Ghana. This was a big step for Nigerian football and for
the players in the team too. Everybody knows about us from then,
about the country and about the players too. We knew then that we
could do it, that we were good footballers, we had a lot of belief
in ourselves from there. We had achieved something and we were free
to move on with our lives after that. And because we had done that,
a lot of big teams had come to see us there and they were knocking
on the doors for us, the market was open to us after that and many
of the players went on to play in Europe, like myself.
“Before that, African football was not so well known
in the world then, although at junior level, African nations had
done well through the 1980s. In youth football, we were very strong.
But at senior level, it was much harder because we didn’t have
so many players in Europe and without that, players did not progress
so much as they got older. But then, as African countries did well
in youth competitions every time, the European clubs started to
take notice and started to take the players out of the country.
They had the pick of the boys and then those boys started to become
big players in men’s football too, and this is why African
nations began to do well in the last 15 years at senior level too.”
For Kanu, that Under-17 World Cup win was a turning point in his
life. While English clubs showed a spectacular lack of vision, virtually
ignoring the tournament and its eventual winners, clubs on mainland
Europe could see that a footballing revolution was taking place
in Africa, that there was a whole generation of incredible talent
just waiting to be recruited and ready to join clubs that they’d
previously only read about.
“We knew about the big clubs back in Nigeria, teams like Milan,
Manchester United, Ajax, but I didn’t ever believe that I was
going to be playing for Ajax in the future!
All I did was to go to the under-17 tournament with Nigeria and
the only thing in mind is to win the competition, to do as well
as we can as a team. But then suddenly, a lot of clubs from Belgium,
from France, come knocking for me, but I was waiting to make up
my mind, then Ajax come along.
I already knew a lot about them, I knew that they were a very good
club for kids, for their youth team, that they produce many good
players. It was a place where you can learn, where you can get educated
well in football, they have good technical programmes and so it
was easy for me to choose to go to Ajax.
“It is a big change to leave home when you are 17 and go to
live in another country, another continent. It was not easy at the
beginning because so many things are different from home.
It was the first time I’d traveled away for any time, I missed
my family, the language was different, the culture was strange to
me, even the food. So it was difficult, but I loved the football
and the chance to play there, I was quick to make friends, the club
really did help and the players did as well and after a little time,
it was much easier, I was very happy there.”
Having moved for a Nigerian record of $250,000, Kanu was given time
to settle into the Dutch way of life and of football, and it wasn’t
until the following February that he made his first team debut,
that lack of regular football explaining his failure to break into
the senior squad in time for the 1994 World Cup Finals in the United
States.
But he was quick to put that disappointment behind him the following
season as he played a full part in helping Ajax retain the Dutch
title. But there was an even bigger prize waiting for them at the
end of that 1994/95 season.
“There were so many great players at Ajax and we became a team
very quickly and we started to do well in Europe too. The Champions
League is a big thing, and as a very young team, that was a great
dream for us, but like with Nigeria, we did not really know how
good we were, or whether we could win.
But we got through round by round and suddenly we were in the final
to play against Milan after beating Bayern Munich. When we got there,
we believed in ourselves, we were not frightened and we thought
we would win the game, and we did.
“That is the biggest achievement in club football, to win the
Champions League, but to come back the following year and to get
through to the final once again and to only lose to Juventus on
penalty kicks, that was a big thing to do because it proved we were
a great team and that we were hungry to be successful, even though
we only got the silver medal that time! I am very proud of what
we managed to do at Ajax.”
Success on the domestic level meant that Kanu had put himself back
in the thoughts of the Nigerian national selectors and, when the
time came to select the team to contest the Olympic Games in Atlanta
in 1996, not only was Kanu in the squad, he was its captain.
At the time, this country was swept up in the euphoria of Euro ’96
and, given our refusal to field a Great Britain team, we did not
take part in the football competition in those Olympics. But for
the rest of the world, this was a tournament that ranked only a
little short of the World Cup itself, and one that was treated very
seriously, not least by the South Americans who sent very powerful
sides to contest the competition.
After sweeping aside both Hungary and Japan, Nigeria found themselves
pitted against Brazil in the semi-final. If you doubt the quality
of the competition, just look at some of the names in that Brazilian
side – Roberto Carlos, Ze Maria, Aldair, Conceicao, Rivaldo,
Juninho, Bebeto, Ronaldinho.
As you’d expect from a side like that, Brazil started quickly,
Conceicao putting them a goal up in the first minute, and even though
Roberto Carlos gifted Nigeria an own goal, Bebeto and Conceicao
had then 3-1 to the good inside 38 minutes, a lead that was still
intact going into the final quarter of an hour.
That was the cue for Kanu to turn on the style, tormenting the Brazilian
defence, helping create a goal from Ikpeba after 78 minutes. With
time running out, with virtually the last kick of the game, Kanu
struck to send matters into sudden death extra-time. Four minutes
later, Kanu came away with the golden goal and a place in the Olympic
Final. It’s a memory he still treasures.
“In the semi-final against Brazil, we knew we were a very good
team by then, we thought we could have success and then I scored
the golden goal that won the game in sudden death. If I stop football
tomorrow, all my life I will be able to remember that moment, I
will never forget it. It’s something that doesn’t come
often in your life, just a few minutes to go, we were losing 3-1,
so to turn it upside down and go and win 4-3, it is a great thing
in my career.”
Argentina were the final opposition – Crespo, Zanetti, Sensini,
Almeyda, Simeone, Ortega. Again, the courage and resolve of the
Nigerians was tested to the full as Argentina held a 2-1 lead going
into the last 20 minutes. But Nigeria were happy on American soil
as they’d shown in the World Cup two years earlier.
They were fluent, attack minded but disciplined too, belying the
sub-racist nonsense that African sides are “tactically naïve”.
Amokachi grabbed an equalizer and, a minute before time, Amunike
won the game, leaving Kanu to lead his team to the presentation
ceremony.
“I had two great years because we were in the Champions League
Final two times, in 1995 and 1996, I started to play for my country
at senior level and then in 1996, we went to the Olympic Games in
America and we won the gold medal.
I was the captain of the team so it was even more special to win
the Olympics, but it was just like winning when I was an under 17s
player. We just went to the competition to do well, not thinking
we would win it. But in football, when you keep on progressing,
you get more confident in what you can do, and it goes on from game
to game, just as it can be the other way. If you win games, it gives
you courage to believe in your ability and to try new things.”
That courage would be tested to the full as Kanu embarked on the
next chapter of a career following the end of the Olympics, a chapter
that for a time promised to be the final one…
Part
Two
After
collecting a gold medal as captain of Nigeria’s victorious
team at the Atlanta Olympics, Kanu returned to Europe to embark
on a new chapter of his career, beginning his first season at the
San Siro as part of a new Inter Milan outfit, his transfer from
Ajax having been sealed just prior to him jetting off for the States
to earn Olympic glory…
Having won everything there was to win during the course of his
three seasons with Ajax, Kanu was offered a fresh challenge in Serie
A as the Ajax side that had reached consecutive European Cup Finals
began to break up. Italy was the ultimate destination for the likes
of Seedorf and Davids and Kanu was no different, accepting an offer
to join Internazionale of Milan, then managed by Englishman Roy
Hodgson.
Without a Serie A title since 1989, and having ended the 1995/95
season in an ignominious seventh place, 19 points behind the champions,
deadly rivals AC Milan, Inter were desperate to turn their fortunes
around.
Kanu was seen as an integral part of a renewed push for the Scudetto,
so much so that the deal was signed, sealed and delivered without
the Nigerian undergoing the normal medical examinations.
At just turned 20, with two European Cup medals of different hues
to his credit and with him ready to take part in the Olympics, Inter
must have felt that that was just a formality in case, something
that could comfortably be waived if it meant getting Kanu’s
signature on the contract as some measure of appeasement for their
restive fans.
By the time Kanu returned to Milan, his reputation was greater yet
after single handedly turning the semi-final against Brazil, then
featuring heavily as Nigeria came from behind to snatch the gold
medals from Argentina. But life has a habit of administering a quick
rap to the ribs when things are going well, and so it was when Kanu
pitched up at the San Siro.
“When the tournament was over, I went back to join up with
my new team, Inter Milan, and I played a few games there. Then there
was a call for me from the medical team, I could not travel with
the team to a game and the doctors told me that I had a problem
with my heart and that I could not play.
It was a big, big shock to me. When you have been a professional
player, or just when you are playing sport anyhow, for many years
and you don’t ever feel any problem, it was unbelievable to
get that news. I had just come back from playing in Atlanta where
it was very hot, the conditions were difficult, but I had played
easily without any difficulties.”
The news from the medics was about as serious as it could get, so
serious that the doctors initially thought that the problem was
not with Kanu but with their equipment.
It transpired that he was suffering from a major weakness in the
aortic heart valve, a condition that didn’t just place his
career in jeopardy, but one which threatened his very life. Having
survived the shock that came with the news, Kanu immediately began
to seek advice on the best course of action.
“I am a Christian, I have a strong belief in God and I believed
that God would take care of me through those problems and that I
was having these difficult things to deal with for a good reason.
With the advice of the doctors, I started to find out what was the
best way to get fit again, what treatment was best and in the end,
I went to America and had an operation, because I was advised that
if I wanted to play again, I needed to have this operation while
I was young, that I should not try to play without it.”
Kanu underwent open heart surgery in Cleveland in November 1996,
the heart valve being repaired rather than replaced, giving him
a better chance at playing the game again. By April 1997, he was
pronounced fit to play football once more, a prodigious recovery.
Having survived such a scare, Kanu had fresh perspective on football
and on life.
“Normally in life, some times we do not think about what it
is really about, what it is that is important. Life is not about
football. It is not just about your everyday job.
There is much more about life than that. And when you go through
things such as this, then it makes you strong. You learn many things
about yourself and about life too, you understand the things that
are really important. For me, after going through everything, I
believe I know more about me and about life, about how to live properly,
than I did before.
“The troubles that I went through, I was lucky that I had good
people to help me and I had he opportunity from my standard of living
to be able to get well again and carry on with my career. Not so
many people, especially in my country, are so lucky to be able to
do that.
So it was important that I tried to help them from my experiences
and I set up the Kanu Heart Foundation to do that. Since I started
the foundation, we can boast of having cured 100 kids of heart problems
and this is a thing that I will be continuing for as long as I can.
“I still try to raise money and so on, and if people want to
make a contribution to help, then they can go to the website –
www.kanuheartfoundation.com – and see the work we do. We take
the sick kids out to other countries where they can get the very
best treatment and it is so good to be able to do that, it is a
great feeling for me. I would also like to organize a special benefit
match in this country again to try to raise money like the game
we had a few years ago, because there are so many kids that need
our help. These are the things that matter most in life, to help
others. My problems helped me to see that more clearly.”
Kanu also realised that his celebrity as a footballer was perhaps
the best weapon he had as he tried to help others in a less fortunate
position, but by the time he came to resume his career, Inter had
moved on. He had missed a full season and new players had been recruited
to fill the gap he left in the team.
He finally returned to active duty in the 1997/98 season, but he
was an intermittent starter for the team and, by the end of the
middle of the following season, it was becoming obvious that he
needed to move from Inter to reignite his career at the top level.
When Arsenal arrived in Italy bearing a cheque for £4.5million,
everybody was happy enough to close the book on that chapter and
Kanu headed for a new life in London, and perhaps the greatest sustained
success of his career.
“Arsenal is a very great club and it was a place that I was
able to fit into very quickly because I think that Arsene Wenger
wanted players to express themselves as players. It was a very different
pattern to playing in Italy where it is very tactical. Here, the
tactics are strong, but it is also a place where you have freedom
to play because that is how English football is. It is much faster
here. But Arsenal also play the way they do in Europe, it is important
to keep the ball all the time. You learn a lot from Arsene Wenger,
he is a very clever man, and he is a good manager of people as well.
“We kept the same team together for a lot of years with
not too many changes so that means that you get a good team spirit
and you fight a lot for one another even if things aren’t going
so good. That played a very big part in winning lots of trophies
while I was there, it was a good time for me again.”
Above all, Kanu established himself in the public mind as a player
who plays the game with a smile on his face, in exuberant fashion,
enjoying the game for what it is – a game, the beautiful game.
It’s a mindset rather different to the prevailing one in this
country.
“In Africa, I think we look at football as being something
different. In Europe, people see it as the most important thing
in the world, winning and losing are big stories where at home,
football is for enjoyment, it s a way to get away from life which
is hard sometimes. It is about entertaining the crowd and yourself.
“In Nigeria, it is a great thing to play football, we smile
when we play the game and we like to enjoy it. To play football
as a job, how can life be better? So when you become a professional
in other countries, then you have to change a little bit what you
do and how you are because you have to respect the people you play
for and the country where you play. Here, you have to treat it as
business. You have to win first of all.
“But you can’t lose the things that you did when you were
younger. I have made changes but I have kept my love of the game
and I mix them together. Even if you want to win, you can still
enjoy it, you can still express what talents you have, you can still
make people smile. If you have skills, you must show them to the
people because this is what they want to see, they want to see players
with an exciting attitude.”
That attitude made Kanu a huge success at Arsenal, but after collecting
a host of medals with the Gunners including the Premiership as part
of the invincible team that went through the whole season unbeaten,
it was time for Kanu to take up yet another new challenge –
helping establish West Brom in the top flight.
As he freely admits, the acclimatization to life at the other end
of the table hasn’t been without its difficulties.
“It has been a different thing for me to come to a team like
Albion because at Ajax, Inter Milan and Arsenal, they have been
at the other end of the competitions, trying to win trophies.
So it is an adjustment and it is difficult. When you come to a different
club, everything is new. You have to adapt, life is different with
the team, and it took a lot of time for us to understand each other.
And with the games at the end of last season being so important,
it wasn’t always easy to express what you can do. But this
year, I know everybody here now, the manager has had time to tell
us about the kind of football he wants us to play, so I hope it
will be better this year, but for me, I have had some injuries and
that has been difficult. So you change, but you still have to keep
what made you a good player first of all, you have to mix it up.”
Kanu has also continued to keep strong ties with Nigeria, playing
in the side that fell at the final hurdle of World Cup qualification,
Angola snatching a late win in their final game against Rwanda to
turf Nigeria out of the competition, a bitter blow.
“We were just ten minutes away and not to make it made all
the players very sad. It’s a big blow for our country. Everyone
was down wherever you went afterwards – it was like someone
had died Football has been so important in Nigeria and it is perhaps
the biggest thing we have in the country.
Sometimes you have these internal problems in Nigeria, but when
the country is playing a game, a competition, everybody is together,
wanting to help the team. There is peace. Then people go back to
their usual way of life and then the next game, peace comes once
more! So football is so important in Nigeria. It brings unity.”
More immediately though, Kanu’s eyes are fixed on life at West
Bromwich Albion and his magnificent performance in the recent win
over Arsenal shows that he is ready to take on a key role within
Bryan Robson’s side.
“I have many more things to give to the team, I know that I
can do more, and when I get the chance to do it, I hope I can prove
that. I am trying to show that in training.
But I am a person who is always trying to put the team first, before
myself. When I came to Albion, my intention, my dream, was that
we do not go down, we have to stay up in the Premier League. And
on the final day, it comes true and that was a great thing. But
now we have to do better than what we did last season, we have to
finish higher.
“Football is unpredictable, you can never really say what will
happen. We have to work hard together and try to get better results.
I want the club to progress and to grow and not be every year fighting
in the bottom of the table. We set high targets and we need to work
towards them. That is my goal.”
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