The trip Manchester United made to Nigeria in 2008 has been labeled as a distaster by one of the players who was a part of the team that took on Portsmouth at the Moshood Abiola stadium in Abuja.
United defeated Portsmouth who were then the FA Cup champions in an exhibition game in Abuja but the memories of that visit which was part of their tour to Africa left a bitter taste in the mouth of one of the stars in the team.
Writing in his biography, Carrick who is now at the helm as coach of Middlesbrough lamented the entire trip to Nigeria, which they made after a touring South Africa. He said the Abuja experience will go down in his mind as his worst ever as a professional footballer.
He went on to reveal how some players developed certain ailments upon returning from Nigeria making the club to take their samples for medical examination. He said the results showed faeces of monkeys and rats in the meal they had in Abuja.
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“The trip lasted only 16 hours, but Abuja effect lasted longer. I vomited for a week, but some lads had it far worse. They were so sick that United sent a sample off to some university and, I’m not kidding, they found monkey and rat shits in the sample”, he said in his biography.
“The university docs said they’d never seen anything like it before. So no, I won’t remember Abuja happily and I can’t imagine the other lads will either. Those are the type of souvenirs you don’t want to bring back from tours abroad”, he ended his narration on the trip to Abuja.
Osas Mahawi
