How Rio 2016 Olympics Plane Trouble Ground My Hopes Of Leading Nigeria At Opening Ceremony - Mikel Obi

Nigeria football team have certainly been flying since we arrived in Brazil.

Not everything went according to plan at the start, mainly because there seemed to be a problem getting a plane big enough to take us from our training base in Atlanta to Manaus for our first match.

I will never forget going to the airport and seeing this tiny aircraft that had been booked for us.

It was so small and only had room for about 25 people. I don’t know how they expected us to get on that plane, we all have families.

We were also told that it would need to make two stops on the way to refuel, fly overnight and take eight hours.

I had to step up for the team and told them we have to get a better plane or we will wait in Atlanta. Thankfully a better plane came out of nowhere and we ended up on a direct flight, that took us just five hours.

But it meant we only arrived on the day of the game and I think it contributed to the crazy opening match against Japan. We won 5-4 and the goals just seemed to be flying in all over the place. Significantly, with more time to prepare, Nigeria won the next match with Sweden 1-0 and everyone was far more compact.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up carrying the Nigeria flag at the opening ceremony as expected.

Our first two games were in Manaus and we arrived so late, we didn’t have the time to arrange for me to fly to Rio straight after the Japan match and then come back again to face Sweden.