Late Coach Ismaila Mabo
Nigerian football family on Monday lost a huge personage, Coach Ismaila Mabo, foremost Super Falcons head coach, to the cold hands of death after a protracted bout with an undisclosed illness at 78.
Najib Mabo, his son, announced the legendary footballer’s demise in a Facebook post on Monday.
Read the post: “Innalillahi wainna illaihi rajiun. Our father, Chief Coach Alhaji Ismailia Mabo is gone. May his soul rest in peace. Ameen”.
The family disclosed that Mabo died in the early hours of the day in his Jos, Plateau State residence.
Funeral activities have commenced with prayers at the family house in Jos and the burial at the Zaria Road Burial Ground before he was buried at 4:00pm, according to Muslim rites.
Mabo is widely considered the Falcons’ most successful head coach after leading the team to the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup where the team reached the quarterfinals — Nigeria’s best-ever performance at the competition.
Prior to that, he also led the Falcons to their first-ever African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) win, scoring 28 goals and none conceded to lift the maiden edition of the competition in Ijebu Ode.
Mabo, a Muslim, who was also in charge of the AWCON title defence in South Africa two years later would not hear anybody address him as Alhaji despite performing the Hajj way back in the ’80’s.
Returning from the traditional Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca, some staff of the Platuaeu State Sports Council who walked into his office at West of Mines, Jos to congratulate him, addressed him as Alhaji.
Responded Mabo then: “No o, Alhaji will not work here o. Call me coach or skipoo”.
A non-religious bigot who attended St Theresa’s Catholic Primary school as a kid, also took the Super Falcons to the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics.
