If there's one beautiful thing about being a child, it's perhaps the innocence that comes with it. An innocence that's both endearing at one time and frustrating at another time.
It's perhaps one of those frustrating children that disturbed their parent a lot, thus giving birth to the Nigeria vs India famous football match. Which can be acclaimed as of one the biggest story in the life of a Nigerian child and although almost no one knows the origin of the story, it's not quite hard for our imagination to run wild.
THE DAY IT ALL HAPPENED
It was probably one certain night where a young boy Nigerian boy 
Unfortunately this boy wouldn't let his father be. Thinking of how to best occupy the boy, his father promises to tell him a story immediately he finishes his food knowing how well his son loved stories.
After the meal, he had to come up with a story or he wouldn't have peace for that night.
THE MATCH
The match would thus take place at the popular stadium in Lagos, Nigeria. It would be the first time Nigeria would be facing India in a football match and everyone had been anticipating the match.
The match started as the referee blew the whistle and both teams went into action. All seemed well until things began to change. Everytime the Nigerian players tried to take a shot, the ball either turned to stone or burst into flames and they couldn't play it.
Unlike the Nigerian team, the Indians weren't having the same difficulty. On the other hand anytime they took a shot towards the Nigerian goalpost, the ball immediately turned into the head of a lion in flames.
It was clear the Indians had brought their voodoo (juju) to the field and no matter what the Nigerians did, they were absolutely no match. The Indians were giving the Nigerians wotoporously (back to back), as every shot they took, immediately our goalkeeper saw the lion head coming at him he would run away and the Indian team would score.
This continued and the match was soon at 99-0 with India leading. They then boasted to Nigeria that if they were able to score even one goal, then the Nigerian team would be declared the winners regardless of the initial scoreline.
With the ball always turning to stone and sometimes a flaming lion head, the Nigerian team couldn't score a goal. Until the last minute when they luckily got a penalty and everyone refused to step up to take it.
But amongst the Nigerian team, there was a hero in the person of Sam Okparaji. Okparaji agreed to take the penalty with the belief that whatever would happen would eventually happen.
Immediately he stepped up to take the penalty, the ball changed into a stone on fire but he was not deterred and took the shot. The ball went in and Nigeria won the match, but unfortunately Sam Okparaji slumped and died on the field immediately.
Nigeria won the match scoring that lone goal, but they lost a hero. This was why FIFA banned Indians from playing football at the world stage ever again.
As
A fact check reveals almost every Nigerian child heard this story and believed it was real at one point or another during their childhood. Although we all heard the story in different versions, the base was all the same, Nigeria played India and won a match by scoring just the one goal in a 99-1 saga.
No one knows how this story came up, but what's real is that no such match ever took place in Nigerian history. So it's safe to assume and let my imagination fill up the rest that it was one frustrated father that came up with the story to placate his ever disturbing child.