Want a World Cup goalie? Ike Shorunmu can’t get a game anywhere yet he is Nigeria’s number one
Ryan Oliver
Coach, sorry to bother you, any chance of a word with your goalkeeper? A bit of publicity in England, you never know, can’t do any harm… “Sure, sure,” said the coach, slapping me on the back and immediately shouting across to a kit man. “Find him a club, eh.”
Shuaibu Amodu is in charge of Nigeria’s national team and we were standing on the ground-floor steps of their hotel in Bamako, where Amodu’s team are favourites to win the African Cup of Nations.
Seconds later the kit man was hammering on the door of the goalkeeper’s room on the 11th floor. The goalkeeper, Ike Shorunmu, was lying naked on his bed, so I probably saw a lot more of him than I needed to. The kit man explained who I was, Ike pulled on a tracksuit bottom and led me out to the balcony to tell the story that may well make him unique in world football.
Unless he can find an employer in the next few weeks, Shorunmu will go to the World Cup without having played a single club game all season. Not because he’s no good, but because he wants to play for his country. Shorunmu is a victim of what is usually called the club-versus-country dispute within football.
In this instance it’s more a case of club versus individual, or, to some, Europe versus Africa. Shorunmu was ditched by Besiktas at the start of the season because he would not sign a contract putting the Turkish league ahead of international football. Shorunmu stuck to his principles and is now in Mali, representing his country.
With World Cup games against Argentina, Sweden and England next on the horizon, he’s unemployed. The last player to appear in the World Cup finals while clubless was Roger Milla in 1990. But there’s a big difference between a man who averaged 39 minutes on the pitch for Cameroon and didn’t start a game and a goalkeeper who will be facing Michael Owen, Gabriel Batistuta and Henrik Larsson.
“For a goalkeeper it’s different,” says Shorunmu. “When you lose the quality of the goalkeeper, the whole team has a problem. I feel I am at 80% now, not at my best. I need to be playing competitive football to get to 100%. I can’t be less than 100% at the World Cup. I need a contract three months somewhere in Europe, that would be great.”
He certainly looks good enough and should have no problems with a work permit, as he is a permanent fixture in the Nigeria team. The coach has complete faith in him and his team-mates have been very supportive. “A similar thing has happened to some of them in Europe, but the punishment for playing for their country has been being dropped into the second team. None of them has been forced out like me.”
Shorunmu (34) was a late starter in Europe after being spotted playing well for Nigeria. He left his local club, Shooting Stars of Ibadan, to play in the Swiss league.
After two years at Lausanne he transferred to Besiktas, where he played well enough over two seasons to earn a new contract. But he had been away too many times for the liking of the German coach, Christoph Daum, and was told he could play World Cup qualifiers, but not the Nations Cup, Africa’s top tournament. Shorunmu refused and after much haggling he was kicked out last August, since when he has been waiting for an offer and training back home with Shooting Stars, now in the Nigerian second division.
“A bit of two on two, some shots … not enough for me,” he says. “I have satellite TV and I sit at home watching Michael Owen, David Beckham, football around the world. But especially England. I call Finidi [George, at Ipswich], have a chat and I keep waiting. Three months, that’s all I need.”
Shorunmu doesn’t want to risk injury and loss of face by playing in the Nigerian League. Does he not feel angry, depressed?
“Sometimes angry, but mostly no. When it first happened, I just kept thinking, ‘What’s going on here, what’s going on?’ I still think it now. What are the players supposed to do? I can’t say ‘No’ to my country. I live in Nigeria: what will the people think if I forego my country when they call me?”
A European club might lose a player for half a dozen games a season clearly too many for some. The new international calendar, and a planned reduction in qualifiers on some continents, will improve the situation by 2006. But that’s a world away for Shorunmu. He’s thinking of the next three months.