NIGERIA, A SPORTY COUNTRY-by María Carreño

NIGERIA, A SPORTY COUNTRY.

This month, I’m going to talk of sport in Nigeria and especially about the supporters in this country.

It’s a well-known truth that football is the most popular sport in Nigeria. There, the kids dream of becoming internationally recognized footballers as their role model Jay-Jay Okocha, likewise teenagers and some youngsters are playing small football matches on every street at almost all the time.

To summarise, football in Nigeria has remarkable stars and olympics champions like the Nigeria Super Eagles which won the first gold medal in Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games  by beating the Argentina team. 

Above: The Olympic team of Nigeria in 1996.

But football isn’t only the important sport that people play in Nigeria, also there are some sports which aren’t so known, such as Basketball that is loved by boys and girls at school and Running, a sport that young people actively take part in, it’s very challenging, there are plenty of people who participate in this sport and many of them hope to make it to the Olympics games, but only a few get the chance to be picked up to represent their country at the Olympics or Common Wealth games, as well.