The success of Nwankwo Kanu and his colleagues in the Nigerian “Super Eagles” has put his country on the world map. Here we present Part One of a two part interview with Kanu by Dave Bowler.
“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. They are the ones who can do the unlikely, create the improbable, and perform the impossible.
Kanu is one such a man. He’s a player of impeccable pedigree, a footballer of genuine international class. He has won medals on the world stage and in club football too. Kanu is 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. Simply put, he’s a man on a mission.
African stars such as Kanu shine a light on a part of the world that has long been neglected by popular culture. The region is still a mystery to many and is still shamelessly exploited by the developed world.
Kanu And The Super Eagles
The success of Kanu and his colleagues in the Nigerian “Super Eagles” has put his country on the world map. More than just some former colonial outpost, it 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 that, it barely merited mention. It was a forgotten nation on a continent the West tried to keep in the dark. All while pillaging 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 notable of these is Nigeria. Kanu is widely acknowledged as the most successful Nigerian footballer in history. He 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. There’s 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 over there, you are playing in the streets and in your local area, the neighbourhood.
Iwuanyanwu Nationale
We have school football, of course, so I played for my school, and then I played for a local team, Iwuanyanwu Nationale. People saw that I could play well, and I always thought that I would have to 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. That is how you become a better player, by being in the best competitions. It means that you can secure a better standard of living. That 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 Breaks Into Nigeria U17s
Kanu’s big break came in the summer of 1993 when Fanny Amun, the coach of Nigeria’s under-17 side, spotted him play. Amun 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. We didn’t know 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. He 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. 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. Also 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. They were knocking on the doors for us. The market was open to us after that. Many of the players went on to play in Europe, like myself.
African Youth Success
“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. 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. They 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. 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. English clubs showed a spectacular lack of vision, virtually ignoring the tournament and its eventual winners. However, clubs in mainland Europe could see that a footballing revolution was taking place in Africa. They saw 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, and 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. The only thing on my 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. I was waiting to make up my mind, then Ajax come along.
Kanu At Ajax Of Amsterdam
I already knew a lot about them, I knew that they were a very good club for kids. Their youth team 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. So, 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. So after a little time, it was much easier. I was very happy there.”
Record Fee
Having moved for a Nigerian record of $250,000, Kanu was given time to settle into the Dutch way of life and of football. It wasn’t until the following February that he made his first team debut. That lack of regular football explains 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. 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. 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. However, like with Nigeria, we did not really know how good we were, or whether we could win.
Champions League Winner
“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. 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.
Olympic Golden Goal Against Brazil
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.
Olympic Gold Medal
“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.
Captain kanu
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…
Kanu In Serie A
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.
Inter Milan
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.”
Heart Surgery For Kanu
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. SurgeryWith 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.
Kanu Heart Foundation
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.
Fundraising
“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.
London Calling
“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.
Arsenal Invincible
“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?
West Brom
“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.
World Cup Qualification
“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.”
Kanu Promises More To Give
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.”
