Lionel Messi always inflicted me with a binary disease. I love him, but not his country. Any time I saw him play, he revived the maestro of my boyhood fancy: Haruna Ilerika. He is small, just like Haruna. He is a leftie, just like Nigeria’s former number nine who clutched Africa player of the year honours twice. He enjoys the dribble run, cuts through defences like a tailor through satin (fans often called Ilerika Tailor), browbeats marque defenders, executes an economy of schemes, pearls passes that even his opponent envies,…
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