8th April, 2011
Skipper of Nigeria’s U-23 team and Monaco of France playmaker, Haruna Lukman has come under serious criticism over his attitude whenever he plays for the national team. But the player cleared the air in this interview with ADEBOBOLA ALAWODE. Lukman spoke to our man shortly after he led the Dream Team V to defeat Equatorial Guinea 5-0 in the first leg of the London 2012 Olympic qualifier at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin, Edo State, Nigeria recently.
You captained the U-23 Eagles against Equatorial Guinea, how do you feel?
Our performance was good. We played to the instruction of the technical crew and we won the match convincingly, so I feel great.
Did you envisage that your opponents were going to be defeated with the wide margin?
To be sincere, we never thought that the margin would be high but thank goodness, we won with five goals. This will make the return leg a easier for us. If they must defeat us, they would have to score more than the five goals we scored in Benin City.
How will you rate yourself in the encounter?
I don’t like singing my praises. I would prefer if those that saw the match rate me than I, doing the rating by myself.
Some of the fans said that the scoreline would have been more than five goals, if you had converted the penalty awarded to the team?
I want to apologise to Nigerians for the penalty miss, because it was not intentional. I wanted to score it but it was not my making. I want to say sorry to the Nigerian fans.
May be you lost the penalty because of stage freight, or were you just carried away?
It can’t be stage freight because I had played in stadias, where there are more spectators than those we had at the Ogbemudia Stadium. I would say it had been written that I was going to miss the penalty.
Before you stepped forward to take the spot kick, you and Nnamdi Odumadi were seen dragging for who was going to take the penalty, would you say that affected you?
No. you heard at the post match conference, when the coach said we had already concluded on who takes the first penalty, second and third. Odumadi I believe wanted to take the penalty but when I insisted he left it for me.
Back to the post match conference, you were almost lynched by the Benin fans, what would you say was responsible for the attack?
The fans know better. Some of them were asking for my jersey, my shorts and others valuables. But, I told them that they can’t have them, so they wanted to forcefully take my jeyseys away from me and I refused. Thank goodness that the men of the Nigeria Police Force, NPF were on ground to rescue me They really helped by saving me from the fans.
Some of the fans alleged that you don’t give your best whenever you are on national duty, what do you think about that?
I don’t agree with those who claim I don’t give my best while playing for this country. As a Nigerian, I always put in my best so that the team can perform well in any competition. I give my best to Nigeria anyday and will always do anytime I put on the jersey of the Eagles.