Two years ago, a colleague who sat next to me at work, a Crystal Palace season ticket holder, asked if I had heard of a Nigerian footballer called Victor Moses. At the time, I had never heard the name, but over the last 12 months, Victor Moses has slowly been catching everyone’s attention, and may have played his last match for Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace are reluctantly looking to sell him to ease their financial problems, and the interested clubs are rumoured to be Real Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool and Manchester City(currently favourites to land him). He is currently the hottest football property outside the premiership at the moment and looks to command a transfer fee of between £3-5 million depending on which news paper you read.

His back story: Victor Moses was born in Nigeria, and lived in Kaduna. His father was a pastor and was killed during one of Nigeria’s many religious riots, back in 2002. (Sadly, today’s news is reporting religious clashes in Jos, it’s so sad how we are still fighting the same battles so many years on). Within a week of his parents being killed, Victor was brought to London, where he was registered as an asylum seeker.(Read his full back story here, although I RESENT the use of the term “war torn Nigeria” in that article)

In 2005, he helped his school (Whitgif)  to win the FA Youth Cup with a superb display, he was 14 at the time, and already attending Crystal Palace’s academy.

The young man seems destined for the big time.

The big question, will he ever play for Nigeria? He has already played for the England U-19 side, but can still switch to Nigeria if he so wishes. Can the right Nigerian manager convince this man to switch allegiance, or will England get him, just like they have already ‘captured’ Aston Villa’s Gabriel Agbonlahor ? The Nigerian team, for some inexplicable reason, is currently being built around the cretin that is Chelsea’s John Obi Mikel, however, building the team around this 19 year old lad will be a long term aspiration, and hopefully we can find the players to play around him, and build a team that can challenge for the World Cup sometime in the future. Looking at the current team in the Nations Cup, you can tell we are desperately in need of a creative spark in midfield, and Moses fits the bill.

Sadly, given his personal tragedy back in Nigeria, I doubt that this young man will ever wear Super Eagles green.

As a Nigerian, I have grown up reading about religious crises in the north, but this story just goes to show that innocent people are the ones who end up with scars for life. I am just pleased that this young man has at least managed to put the past behind him, and is poised to make a success of his life.

Right now, I’m feeling a bit ‘deflated’. Yeah, that’s the best word, I’m not ‘depressed’ or ‘sad’, but just deflated. Let me explain.

On the 28th of April, right in the middle of our hectic house move, I got a voicemail from a recruiter. Now, I get these almost everyday, but this one was different. The recruiter was from Microsoft. I felt my hands shaking as I called her back, sadly, I had to leave a voicemail.

The job was a Premier Field Engineer role, specialising in Exchange Server. This was my dream job no matter what angle you looked at it from. I’ve had a long term interest in messaging/email, and this would put me right in the frontline of the most popular messaging software in the world. My commute would be cut by half. They had an on site day care, so my little girl would have a place to go. And best of all, this is Microsoft !!

Anyway, I eventually spoke to the recruiter a few days later, had a telephone interview, which went pretty well, and eventually had the ‘assessment day’ scheduled for last Friday (the 16th).

Now, remember that our internet was only connected last Friday (after the interview), so doing my research on the role, the company and studying for the interview was HARD WORK. I had to sneak a few minutes at a time at work. I used my mobile phone at night to look up stuff (painfully slow on a tiny screen). If those were the only troubles I’d faced last week, that might have been ok.

A friend of mine lost his wife the Saturday before. (10th). We were trying to help him out, and I was spearheading the fundraising for the funeral (the funeral cost £5000). So I spent a lot of my nights on the phone, asking people to donate money. On Wednesday, I came down with a cold, a really bad one, I had to take Thursday off sick just to make sure I could make it on Friday. I had fever, a blocked nose, a sore throat and a bad cough.

And on Friday the day of the interview, I swallowed a dose of ‘Day Nurse’ just before going in, and for 3 hours or so, I was healthy enough to interview, once I got home, I collapsed on my bed, relieved it was over and hoping for the best.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making excuses. While my preparation was not ideal, I don’t think I would have done any better had everything gone smoothly.

Anyway, I finally got the call on Wednesday that I wasn’t being offered the job. While I had excelled in some parts of the interview, I could not answer one particular question in the ‘HR’ bit to their satisfaction, and the technical guys felt that they had to probe me to get answers to the ‘technical depth’ that they were looking for.

Now, it’s not because I didn’t get the job that I’m feeling deflated. Oh no. Even before the whole process began, I was aware that this job was ‘a step up’ from what I was doing at the moment, and I was honoured even to be considered for it.

No, the problem is, I’ve been investigating the possibility of changing jobs since we moved house, things have become a little stagnant where I am, and there’s nothing like a one hour commute in a car everyday to make you look for the next step in your career. But after going through the Microsoft ‘experience’ all the stuff I’m looking at looks so…..well, ordinary. Dull. There’s nothing out there that excites me like that role, that makes me feel like I’m on the way up, like my career is going someplace.

So right now, I’m at work, stuck doing a job I don’t feel challenged by, wondering what might have been. And judging by the vacancies I get in my email every morning, I’m going to be here for a while…………

Not even watching John Terry cry on Wednesday night could cheer me up.

I’m sure I’ll feel better in a few weeks, but right now, well, I have to sit down, and look at all the positives, and MOVE ON.

Tonight, I haven’t been myself. I’ve been subdued, a shadow…

The nation of Scotland was ready for the match of their lives. To qualify for Euro 2008, it was simple. Beat the World Champions.

Sadly, it was not to be.

But the Scots can be proud that they came this far, although it will be little comfort. It would have been the mother of all parties if they had done it though.

Nigeria also lost to Australia in a friendly today, in a match played in London.  I’m starting to think Berti Vogts is not the right coach for Nigeria, but let’s see how things shape up at the African Nations Cup next year.

Oh, and by the way, Israel did England a favour and beat Russia, meaning that England only need a draw with Croatia on Wednesday to qualify for Euro 2008. Lucky Buggers.

But for all the Scots out there, my heart bleeds with yours tonight.