TROUBLED by a knee injury and wearing the vexed expression that can be forgiven in the captain of Nigeria in a tournament that has been as nervy as theirs, Nwankwo Kanu hopes to play some part in today’s match against Ghana. His coach, Berti Vogts, wants him there and so do his colleagues. There is also some unfinished business.
Nigeria’s most celebrated footballer of the past dozen years is probably playing his last major tournament, and this competition has not been kind to the twice African Footballer of the Year. He has been a semi-finalist in the past three such championships, once a losing finalist he failed in the penalty shoot-out that settled the 2000 final in Lagos and is reminded with every game that it would be nice to score a goal in one of these events. This is Kanu’s fifth African Cup of Nations finals, today should be his 26th match, and he has never scored. It is a cursed record for a striker and one that every so often draws scrutiny from Nigerian supporters.
But ask his colleagues or his coaches about his value to the team, and they ask that you judge Kanu, 31, on his leadership, his creativity, his aura. “The legend here is Kanu,” says Stefan Freund, Vogts’ assistant, appointed only a fortnight ahead of the tournament and immediately struck by the esteem in which the squad hold Kanu. “He is a real skipper, a leader with his country at heart.” Kanu the spiritual leads the Nigerians in daily prayer; Kanu the shop-floor leader is also obliged to represent his colleagues in sometimes arduous meetings with officials from the FA and the Ministry of Sport about bonuses and other conditions.
He is also the one player left from the Nigerian team that won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, from which his legend grew. Soon after that, Kanu was diagnosed with a heart defect that threatened to curtail his career at 19. His recovery would be regarded as a blessing, his status especially precious. He can also do extraordinary things with the ball, although the ones best remembered the goal from the impossible angle against Chelsea, and a balletic manoeuvre to score against Spurs tend to have been most decisive for his clubs, of which there have been several: Ajax in Holland, Inter Milan in Italy, and in England, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion.
“Kanu is not only about Nigeria, Kanu is big across Africa,” says John Utaka, his colleague with the Super Eagles and Portsmouth. “For me, he is among the top 10 players in the world. He has won almost everything except a senior World Cup. Everyone respects him.” That would include today’s opponents. “Of the players I have learnt from, Kanu is the important one,” says Ghana’s Ali Sulley Muntari, also of Portsmouth. “He is quiet and really respectful. Kanu is a king on the pitch, but off it he makes you feel comfortable around him. Maybe from the outside it’s hard to see that.”