Today's Google Doodle: Samuel Okwaraji... And The Myth of a Nigerian Child

If you grew up in Nigeria around the 90s, you probably had been told the story of some football match between Nigeria and India, where the former was pummeled by a whooping 100 goals to 1, yet Nigeria won by some strange tie break never heard about in any sports. Yeah, fasten your seatbelt, shit’s about to get real. I'll tell you how this story relates to the man on Google's choice of today's Doodle :)

I've had to think about how trends traveled back when societies were a little less connected. I mean in 2019 it's easy to share the same trending topics on Twitter regardless what part of the globe one lives in. There's internet, telephony is mainstream, and it's a lot harder to build walls between geographical locations, ask Donald Trump. I had this inquisition when I got older and met friends who grew up some 600+ miles away from me, yet we found a common ground on popular culture (stories, songs, jokes); those we first thought originated and ended on our very own yard playgrounds, as kids. One of such is this story of the fetish football match.

This is how it went.

Long when India played in the World Cup (spoiler: they never did)...

Wait! Here's where the warning should come: If you are Indian and extremely sensitive, or lack any sense of humor, I'll advice you stop reading. And for the Americans, by “football”, I mean football. FOOTball: legs, no helmets. You follow?

The Indians showed up with strange costumes for this World Cup match against the Green Eagles of Nigeria. They tied wrappers, and didn't wear shoes. The Nigerian side were in for a shock of their lives. Samuel Google Doodle Okwaraji, one of the very few international footballers to have had a law degree and even went on to obtain a Master's, was part of the Nigerian team.

The Indians set the game running, but to the dismay of the Nigerians, on this hot afternoon the ball, mid air, would morph into everything scary. Everything from spears to lion’s head with a mane, to shotput balls, broken bottles, snake heads and what have you. As you can imagine, the Nigerians just watched the game go by. The Indians wouldn't stop scoring. 10-0. 50. 99. 100 goals. There was no way for the Nigerians to come back into this game. I mean this was shaolin soccer before Shaolin Soccer.

In a gesture of generosity, or arrogance, the Indians came up with a strange tie break rule that meant the Nigerian side won the game if they could score only one goal. That's where Samuel came in.

Nigeria had a penalty and this kid stood up to take it. None of his team mates would. In a stroke of mastery, legend has it that Samuel unlaced his boots and made it so loose that it flew off his foot when he ran to take the spot kick. The Indian goalie had dived in the direction of the boot, and held onto the dummy while the ball went in another direction, into the goal. That was how Nigerians got in the lead.

The Indians being so infuriated, with seconds to the final whistle, directed a shot at Samuel Okwaraji, the ball turned into a spear and went into his chest. That was how our dreadlock wielding goal scorer died. FIFA, the world governing body, in response decided to ban the Indians from ever participating in any football events. End of story.

I'm not kidding you, we grew up listening to that shit 😂😂😂

The real story is that Samuel died just 12 days after I was born. According to Wikipedia “he collapsed and died of congestive heart failure in the 77th minute of a World Cup qualification match against Angola at the Lagos National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos State.”

Just to set the record straight, India never participated in a FIFA World Cup because they never qualified, and their biggest win was against Australia in a 1-7 beating in 1956.

Rest in power, Samuel Sochukwuma Okwaraji. Today you would have been 55. Your memories live on. We will forever miss you.