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Sharuko on Saturday

AT the age of 16, he was a budding footballer so outrageously gifted, so naturally talented, he was even considered to be better than Neymar.

And, at the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in 2009, he didn’t only outshine the Santos prodigy, considered Brazil’s next big thing, he overshadowed everyone.

Philippe Coutinho, another of the famed Brazilian youngsters who was coming up the ranks, and displaying signs of potential greatness, was also there.

And, for all his amazing talent, Coutinho was also pushed into the shadows by the sheer brilliance of this Nigerian teenage star.

Incredibly, eight years later, within a space of just five months, the two boys from Brazil would be involved in two of the three biggest transfers in the history of world football.

Neymar set the ball rolling in August 2017, with a world-record US$270,3 million mega transfer from Barcelona to French super club Paris Saint-Germain.

Then, five months later, Coutinho completed the third-biggest transfer, in world football history, after arriving at Barca from Liverpool for a cool US$194,8 million.

Mario Goetze, by then one of the rising youth players in Europe, was also there but even he, too, was forced to take a bow for this African Crown Prince.

Incredibly, just five years later, Goetze would score the winning goal in the FIFA World Cup final as Germany conquered the globe in Rio de Janeiro.

Son Hueng-Min was also there at that FIFA Under-17 World Cup, which brought together an amazing collection of the globe’s most promising teenage footballers.

But, even the South Korean, for all the potential he was showing, also had to watch from a distance as world football toasted the arrival of its latest promising wonder kid.

Liverpool’s Alisson Becker, Barca’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Arsenal’s Bernd Leno, Atletico Madrid’s Koke, Juventus’ Alvaro Morata, Real Madrid’s Isco and Casemiro, Sergi Roberto, Shkodran Mustafi, Bertrand Traore, Granit Xhaka and Joel Campbell were also all there.

And, they too, had to take a back seat and watch from a distance as world football crowned its latest Crown Prince.

And, for good measure, he was an African, fittingly being crowned in his kingdom, given the tournament was held on the continent.

He was that good, he won the Golden Ball handed out to the Best Player at the Tournament with a performance which, at times, appeared to make a mockery of his age, as it oozed with maturity, way beyond his 16 years.

He also scored the most number of goals (five), at that tournament, ending joint top in the race for the Golden Boot, with Spanish forward Borja, who now plays for Leganes, after stints at Atletico Madrid, Swansea and Aston Villa.

Borja was handed the Golden Boot because, in the event of a tie, organisers have to bring other things, like assists and number of games played, into consideration, when it comes to this award.

The Crown Prince scored his team’s winner, in the 2-1 group victory over Argentina,.

He then added two more goals in 5-0 thrashing of New Zealand in the Round of 16 to dump Son and his South Korean team, in a 3-1 win, in the quarter-finals.

Then, he grabbed another brace, in the 3-1 semi-final victory over a Spanish side which had Morata, Koke, Sergi Roberto and Isco to take his country into the final, where they, however, lost to Switzerland.

By then, the Brazilians had long been home, licking their wounds after being eliminated in the group stages, with just one win, from their three matches.

SOME HAVE EVEN DUBBED IT FOOTBALL’S GREATEST MYSTERY

Oh, we had almost forgotten to provide the identity of that Crown Prince, the African wonder kid.

The teenage football star who, for three weeks, had the world at his feet, casting just about everyone under his spell, with his magical feet, and lethal goal-scoring feat?

Well, his name is Sani Shehu Emmanuel.

That he was even part of Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets team, at the 2009 FIFA Under-17 World Cup, in the first place, was itself an amazing tale.

That, for those three weeks, he then even became a player who was good enough to overshadow Neymar, Coutinho and Son, is itself a story that kisses the edges of fantasy.

And, even more remarkably, is what happened afterwards.

Some have even dubbed it one of football’s greatest mysteries.

And, when you are someone, whose roots are found in TB Joshua’s Synagogue, Church Of All Nations, it’s easy for the gospel related to your career to provoke a storm of conflicting narratives.

After all, in 2007, as selectors started to look for the best Nigerian teenage football talent, which could be assembled into their Golden Eaglets side for that Under-17 World Cup, Emmanuel was just a 14-year altar boy at TB Joshua’s SCOAN headquarters, in Lagos.

The Nigerian televangelist, who died last weekend, had not even established his My People FC amateur football club.

The club, meant to give the boys at his ministry’s headquarters a chance to indulge in their football fantasies, only came into existence in 2008.

‘‘We want these players to play football and serve God with their lives. Like our club My People FC, the players are camped here and fed, it is not for any monetary gain, it is all about soul winning, through sports,’’ T B Joshua told leading Nigerian sports journalist, David Meshioye.

Shortly after the establishment of My People FC, TB Joshua sent three members of the club, including Emmanuel and Ogenyi Onazi, to Sweden, for a brief stint at Boden BK.

There was nothing fancy about that.

After all, Boden BK was, in a way, virtually another amateur club that had just been relegated, from the third-tier of Swedish league football, after finishing last on the table, without a victory in their last nine games.

But, for altar boy Emmanuel, in particular, and Nigeria in general, an unexpected big breakthrough came, out of that trip.

His impressive performances caught the eyes of those who had been tasked with the responsibility to look for fresh, and exciting talent to make the Golden Eaglets side, for that 2009 FIFA Under-17 World Cup campaign.

And, after initially starting from the bench, Emmanuel exploded into the real deal with stunning individual performances which thrust him firmly into the global limelight.

The path to the big time, it appeared, had been opened for him and trial stints followed, firstly at Arsenal and then at Spurs, where the club’s junior coaches even extended his stay, convinced he just needed more time, to adjust to the new environment, and pass the test.

To appreciate the Spurs coaches’ patience, and confidence, their gamble to invest in optimism, rather than pessimism, and their decision to take a chance on hope, rather than hopelessness, one needs to understand the history of those who, since the turn of the millennium, have also won the Golden Ball at the FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

It’s an all-star cast that features the likes of Cesc Fabregas (2003), Anderson (2005), Toni Kroos (2007), Julio Gomez (2011), Kelechi Iheanacho (2013), Kelechi Nwakali (2015), Phil Foden (2017) and Gabriel Veron (2019).

Iheanacho signed for Manchester City, Nwakali was signed by Arsenal but he is now on the books of Spanish La Liga side Huesca, where he made his debut, on September 13, last year, in a 1-1 away draw at Villarreal.

Kroos is a World Cup winner, with Germany, Foden is going places while Veron is the Brazilian boy now being targeted by Manchester United, in a projected US$75 million deal.

They usually come good, one way or the other, and that was why the coaches at Spurs were prepared to take their time, as long as was possible, to give Emmanuel a chance.

To try and help him get back into the stride which, for three weeks at the 2009 FIFA Under-17 World Cup, had even seen him overshadow Neymar.

That it didn’t work out, in the end, was probably a disappointment, to both the suitors and the player and, while no one knew it back then, his chance for a breakthrough into English football, had gone.

LIKE A SHOOTING STAR, HE EXPLODED, THEN JUST FADED AWAY

TB Joshua divides opinion, in life and in death, with as many people who believed in him, as a servant of God, as those who dismissed him, as someone who was just using his mystical hold over his community, to believe in him.

It’s not for me to judge him, because it’s an area where I’m of limited knowledge, to make a fair judgment.

And, since reading the ultimate challenge, in John 8 vs 7, about ‘‘he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone,’’ I have tended to reserve my judgment on people and issues when it comes to matters of religion.

Therefore, I find myself having to respect those who believed in him, like Knowledge Musona, the greatest Warrior since Peter Ndlovu, who trusted TB Joshua, with his healing process from a persistent injury.

He wasn’t the only one.

Nwankwo Kanu also went there, for prayers, to help him deal with his heart complications, so did Joseph Yobo, the former Super Eagles captain, who sought treatment for his troublesome knee injury.

Today, a local football project, Yadah FC, whose establishment appears to have been inspired by TB Joshua’s My People FC, will be in action in the Chibuku Super Cup.

This is the fourth year they are playing in the domestic Premiership.

Yadah FC are even nicknamed the Miracle Boys.

But, if there was, indeed, the closest thing to a football miracle, which emerged from TB Joshua’s connection with the world’s most beautiful game then, it has to be the story of Sani Shehu Emmanuel.

It’s a remarkable story, from its heights to its lowest moments.

It even gets bizarre when one considers what happened, after his three-week spell, soaking in the global limelight, as the game’s finest Under-17 footballer, on the globe.

After his failed trials at Chelsea and Spurs, Emmanuel found himself going from one club to another in Europe without success, before Italian giants, Lazio, offered him a chance, with the club assigning him to their development side in 2011.

A year later, he dropped three leagues down the ladder, to sign for fourth-tier side, US Salernitana 1991, with Lazio retaining a stake in his signature, gambling on the promise, he could just explode into the player they really wanted.

But, he only made one appearance as a second half substitute,in a 1-4 thrashing at the hands of Chiete Calcio on September 9, 2012.

Five months later, he was on the move again, joining Swiss second-tier side, FC Biel-Bienne on loan on February 16, 2013, where he scored his first goal as a professional.

By October 2014, he was on the move again, arriving in Israel, where he joined Beitar Jerusalem but, after only featuring for the club for 24 minutes, Emmanuel’s contract was terminated, with the coach saying he wasn’t the player he wanted.

When he left, he had spent just three weeks at the club.

After a failed trials at FK Sarajevo, in Bosnia, it became apparent his challenges, in Europe, had certainly taken their toll on him.

And, by the time he returned home, with an injury which required surgery, he was penniless.

It needed his former youth international teammate, Onazi, to pay for the surgery and, disillusioned by how his world had crumbled, around him, he quit the game.

But, for all his challenges, his faith in TB Joshua, somehow, was never diluted.

‘‘If not (for) TB Joshua, I would have ended up playing street football at a village called Aso Pada in Abuja,” he told the Nigerian media.

‘‘He raised me from nobody to somebody. I have received calls, and messages from people, asking why couldn’t the man of God help me or heal me,’’ he stated, explaining that Joshua is just ‘like you and I’ but simply being ‘used by God.’’’

Others will disagree and they will point to the mystery of his career, this shooting star who just exploded for three weeks before fading into obscurity, as a sign of why they didn’t believe in someone like TB Joshua.

It’s the way the world is but what no one can dispute is that Emmanuel’s surname, which means “God is with us,’’ could probably not have been more appropriate.

For, in those three weeks under the Nigerian sun, at the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in 2009, there are many who will say, the Lord was certainly with him.

To God Be The Glory!

Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys in the struggle.

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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