WORLD CUP 2014: DID GOD FAIL BRAZIL?

“Faith, in this week of all weeks (the week leading to semi-final match), has come to the fore once again for Brazil and its beloved Selecao. In the hours before the semi-final against Germany, Scolari will find a chapel in Belo Horizonte and pray. Before emerging into the cacophony of noise at Estadio Minerao, the players will stand together and recite the Lord's Prayer as one. In churches and homes across Brazil, pictures of the players hang next to crosses and other religious symbols. These two pillars are inescapably intertwined here. Brazil's footballers - and the wider population - believe it is their destiny to win the World Cup in the City of God on 13 July.”

FIFA World Cup 2014 climaxes today with what promises to be an explosive intercontinental clash between Germany and Argentina. Did you read that? It’s Germany versus Argentina. Host, Brazil and almost everybody’s pre-tournament favourite for the trophy are not in the final. By the time you read this, they would have fought for top place against Holland and may won. But not even that is sure, as I write this.

Now, as you already know, unless you live on the moon, it is not just the failure of the team to qualify for the final, tragic as that is to Brazilians, it is the manner of their ouster; a whopping seven goals to one from the hands, or more appropriately, the legs of the German machine team. Humiliation, demolition, massacre, disgrace are some of the words that have been used to describe this new World Cup record – the most humiliating defeat at a World Cup semi-final. Incidentally it’s the only other record Brazil now holds, besides having won the cup more times than any other country.

How did the world’s best footballing nation come to suffer such devastating defeat? How did a country that did not anchor its expected victory only on skill, but also on the God factor fail so woefully?

Yes, the God factor was always a major part of Brazil’s strategic thinking for this and all previous championships. Let’s substantiate that.

In a BBC Sport article, “World Cup 2014: Faith and Football as Brazil Unites to Pray for Glory,” Ben Smith, writing from Rio De Janeiro reported incontrovertible evidence of the place of faith in this all-important national enterprise.

“It is hard to think of a country that combines sport and spirituality quite like Brazil”, he wrote. Beginning from the general, Smith noticed that “religious imagery is everywhere you look…. Close to where Brazil have trained in Teresopolis, there is a mountain range called God's fingers. Sao Paulo is named after Saint Paul, Salvador is named after Jesus, while Copacabana got its name from the Patron Saint of Bolivia, Virgin of the Candelaria.”

He proceeded to the particular: “Faith, in this week of all weeks (the week leading to semi-final match), has come to the fore once again for Brazil and its beloved Selecao. In the hours before the semi-final against Germany, Scolari will find a chapel in Belo Horizonte and pray. Before emerging into the cacophony of noise at Estadio Minerao, the players will stand together and recite the Lord's Prayer as one. “In churches and homes across Brazil, pictures of the players hang next to crosses and other religious symbols. These two pillars are inescapably intertwined here. Brazil's footballers - and the wider population - believe it is their destiny to win the World Cup in the City of God on 13 July.”

Prior to that stage of the tournament, the players had pressed faith into action to successfully. Ben reported that “before the penalty shootout in their last-16 game against Chile, Brazil captain Thiago Silva prayed alone on the sidelines. ‘I asked God to bless our players, especially [goalkeeper] Julio Cesar. He deserved that,’ he said.”

Continuing, Ben wrote: “What no-one knew was Cesar had placed a religious charm in his goal before the penalties began. It had been handed to him at the end of extra time by reserve goalkeeper Victor. ‘There is faith and there is superstition,’ Victor said. ‘In my case, it's faith. I am religious and I try to reinforce my spiritual side before every game. It is a way to strengthen myself and support my friends with my prayers. I had not planned to give it to Julio, but it happened on the spur of the moment. He welcomed it. It was a kind of reinforcement. I want to stress the importance of Julio as a goalkeeper. Faith is important, but we can't depend on faith alone. God does his part and we have to do our job on the field. Julio was well prepared.’”

Ben finds that Coach Scolari is also in the “victory by faith” business. Scolari, he wrote “has used it to bond and motivate the players. Before the victory over Colombia, he visited a chapel in the grounds of the team hotel in Fortaleza. In the dressing room before the match, the squad repeated the Lord's Prayer. And at the final whistle, defender David Luiz sank to his knees and prayed again.”

That brings us to the faith of the players. David Luiz typifies that. He told Ben: "My faith in Jesus gives me strength to keep on going out onto the field and to do my best…But I also want to inspire others - that is what God inspires me to do. For me, true life is found in the relationship with Jesus Christ. I believe that everything in life belongs to God and he has a clear plan for us if we follow him."

With all of these, why did Brazil fail to win the World Cup? Why did they fall so badly to Germany? Did God fail brazil? WHAT DO YOU THINK?

TO ONE OF GOD’S GIFTS TO ME - AT 60

Segun Odegbami, MON...
60 going 40

"Today, my friend runs a unique sports and art academy, as well as, one of the most enduring sports marketing and promotion outfits in Nigeria. Today, he is at the head of a presidential commission designed to help resuscitate sports in schools across the more than 774 local governments in Nigeria, a job he is passionate about, but for which funding is still awaited,.. He was the visionary of one of the most audacious sports project ever attempted in Nigeria, but rubbished and sabotaged by sundry interests in our nation; a vision that would have changed the face of infrastructure in the country forever; and which almost cost him his life. - The World Cup 2010 bid."

As I set out to write this piece, a thousand and one thoughts are struggling for expression. I am replaying in my head events and circumstances that we have been in together; some truly hilarious; some grim and reputation threatening; some destiny altering. I can see as in a video the calmness, the patience, the equanimity with which this gentleman is taking it all. You are going to have to wait for my memoir to get in on these things; but today as I celebrate my friend, who, if the Lord tarries turns 60 tomorrow, I shall try to give you a glimpse into the world of a man, who I feel tempted to describe as one of God’s gifts to Nigeria, but who, I know will not only frown at such description of him. 

So, I chose to describe him as one of God’s gifts to me, which he is still not going to like very much, but which he cannot deny me the right to do.

 

Permit me to begin this way. My friend would have been an artist, but Providence directed him into the sciences, so he studied engineering. As an engineer, given God’s endowment in him, he would have been an engineer’s engineer, but God again directed differently. He led him to download his art and his science unto his pair of legs and ordered him to, of all places, you’ll say, the football pitch!

 

Many, there would have been, who thought: “wow, what a waste!” but then, as events have proven, “God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform”, to borrow a famous line from a hymn by an English poet, William Cowper.

 

I would be surprised if there’s anybody out there, who would still characterize my friend’s divine conscription into sports as a waste, but even as he made his way up the ladder of fame, if not material fortune, there were many such people. I’ll share one with you, just because it was public and published in a newspaper column this friend used to write in 1979.

 

That friend whose identity was not revealed, safe that he was a secondary school classmate wondered why he sacrificed his engineering profession for “this trade which is usually identified with dropouts”. This mate knew that he was one of the few who had always wanted to pursue academics to the highest point. Wrote this classmate:  “Although, I have always enjoyed watching you play and tried to identify myself with you in public…I still believe that you have not achieved much out of this football you are playing”. 

 

In my friend’s reply to his schoolmate’s honest opinion, viewpoint over 30 years ago, he decided to ‘count my blessings’ as he put it. Here’s an excerpt:

 

Here is a person, he began, referring to himself, “who is hero-worshipped by millions of people, male and female all over Africa; here is a person who is the dream-child of every home; here is a person who walks into any store and gets first-class treatment; here is a person who sits and dines with people of the highest echelon of our society; here is a person, who has travelled to all four corners of the world on the ticket of this trade;  here is  a person who has brought joy and set a standard for thousands of youngsters to emulate and follow; here is a person who walks down the street of his country with his head straight up, chest out, erect, confident, sure of himself and proud of his trade, respected and loved, here is a person who has all these things and more but who, for one reason or the other, isn’t an academic professor and cannot lay claim to more than that which sustains him andhis family… but standing in his trade…

 

“I would give up all the money and education in this world to trade places with this person – to have honour and respect, happiness and contentment in my ‘trade’… My dear friend, I have achieved quite a lot not only for myself but also for my country which incidentally includes you.  Therefore, if not having a series of houses, a chain of companies or a fleet of cars to show for my achievement is what you mean, I can, now see your point.”

Now, I have been this copious about this aspect of my friend’s life for two reasons. One, even that early in his career he had become a role model and he knew it, though without flaunting it. Even that early in his career he had recognized the Hand of God upon his life and the responsibility that is involved. This is the key to understanding how he has comported himself since then.

Since that time he had had the privilege of captaining the national football team. He had won laurels on the continent. He had been to the Olympics. He had swum the shark-infested waters that football politics in Nigeria has become. He had master-minded and/or consulted for institutions on youth sports development. He it was who inspired the first field gold medal ever won by Nigeria at an Olympic games. He has been a columnist for newspapers across the land and can count as one of the most prolific journalists in Nigeria, not on account of his columns on sport, but also his reportage of sports and life in general.

Today, my friend runs a unique sports and art academy, as well as, one of the most enduring sports marketing and promotion outfits in Nigeria. Today, he is at the head of a presidential commission designed to help resuscitate sports in schools across the more than 774 local governments in Nigeria, a job he is passionate about, but for which funding is still awaited! As I write this he is on his way from the United States of America, leading a team of school boys from Oyo state.

 

He was the visionary of one of the most audacious sports project ever attempted in Nigeria, but rubbished and sabotaged by sundry interests in our nation; a vision that would have changed the face of infrastructure in the country forever; and which almost cost him his life.  - The World Cup 2010 bid.

Happy 60^th Birthday to you,  Patrick Olusegun Odegbami, sports icon, visionary, a man of many parts and a friend for all seasons. I am so, so grateful to God for the privilege of numbering among your friends. Your best days are ahead still, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

 

OLYMPICS LONDON 2012...AND THE WINNER IS ...

"In the end, the enemy won, or thought it did. KICC had to move out of its property and relocate somewhere else, eventually not too far away Were that to be the end of the story, I wouldn’t be writing this piece. But even as the Olympics opened last week Saturday in London, Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo and KICC were at the centre of things, even as he had desired. They are there courtesy of a door the Lord opened through Lay Witnesses for Christ International, LWFCI. The body presided over by Dr Sam Mings is currently running what it styles, “Bridging the Gap, UK Outreach 2012” with KICC at the core of it."

The Games of the 2012 Olympiad were still six years away. Visionary that he is, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo wanted Kingsway International Christian Centre to be right at the heart of things. And why not, the church, with a 9.5 acre campus right at centre of the site earmarked for the games, was already at an advantage.

Oh, yes, he knew it was going to be tough since approvals for the church to remain on that site had been continually refused and a deadline for vacating the place had been set for November 2006. But he wasn’t going to give up easily because as he put it then, “KICC wants to be a centre of an outreach to athletes, officials, media and spectators who visit London during the Olympics.”  I recall stating in a 2006 piece in this column, that while Ashimolowo saw in it “an opportunity too great to miss,” the enemy saw in it “an opportunity too great…to look the other way about”

We did say then also that if the enemy could do anything to slower the pace of KICC’s development, it would, because of the clarity and size of its leadership’s vision in these words:

“Apart from the battle for souls some eight (read six) years away, however, is also the spiritual battle the enemy inevitably must seek to wage against the current activities of KICC and its well-articulated vision. For instance, KICC with a current congregation of 12,000 members and a network of 22 churches around England and two independent branches in Africa projects to grow to 25,000 by the year 2010. Well known for its outreaches to drug addicts, prostitutes and the homeless as well as in after-school programs, literacy classes and food distribution…KICC also plans to open 1,000 Caring Heart Centres; pioneer city churches around the world; reach 100 nations through radio and TV specifically and generally to broadcast the gospel world-wide, using every electronic means.”

In the ensuing battle, Ashimolowo essentially played the love card with the London Development Agency. He and his team made some offers that should ordinarily be seen as public-spirited. This, according to him, included offering to “help London offset a reported $1.7 million funding gap between committed funds for the Olympics and its real cost…” be part of the Olympic legacy by building a basketball stadium, which is needed for the Olympics. The reaction we are getting does not make sense, but we know the reasoning behind it. As our church grows, there is a reaction in the spiritual.” The basketball stadium on offer then was estimated to cost $57million.

In the end, the enemy won, or thought it did. KICC had to move out of its property and relocate somewhere else, eventually not too far away  Were that to be the end of the story, I wouldn’t be writing this piece.

But even as the Olympics opened last week Saturday in London, Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo and KICC were at the centre of things, even as he had desired. They are there courtesy of a door the Lord opened through Lay Witnesses for Christ International, LWFCI. The body presided over by Dr Sam Mings is currently running what it styles, “Bridging the Gap, UK Outreach 2012” with KICC at the core of it.

Information available to this writer shows that KICC is playing host the LWFCI Team; providing for them a Regional Command centre at Darnley Road, in Hackney, and an Athlete Hospitality Centre at Hoe Street in Walthamstow, both in London.

The church's contribution, in this respect, it was learnt, includes provision of six computers; two of which are being used for streaming and the other four for administrative purposes. The church is also believed to be providing refreshments and meeting the transportation needs of the team and helping with the media requests for the Olympics.

In a personal message on this dramatic open door published on the KICC website, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo affirmed:

“We believe that our participation in the LWFCI programme has been God ordained. Proof of this is by the way in which Dr. Sam Mings first connected with KICC. When he came to KICC to ask for our support, his primary reason (apart from wanting the endorsement and support), was Kingdom focused. Our KICC church building is in close proximity to the Olympic venue…Prior to coming to the ministry he met Eddie Mapakau who he appointed the national director for LWCFI. At the time of meeting Eddie he was not aware the man he had connected with and wanted to give the leadership to was a member of KICC. It was later on that this was made known…As a consequence this meant from the beginning of our working together that there would be a flow of understanding, common purpose and unity of spirit. Good team work and structured plans have emerged which has resulted in a great programme being developed…”

And so, Ashimolowo and KICC are where they have always prayed to be, at the spiritual heart of London 2012. In my books, that is the most golden gold medal of them all.

FOOTBALL AND EDUCATION…HAND-IN-HAND

"But, the guys at SPDC, with consultant, Segun Odegbami, MON, in the thick of it, had identified a worrying trend in the nation where Nigerian youths, seduced by the megabucks being earned by football stars, were beginning to abandon education for football. The portents were bad. The dangers, of producing many half-literate football stars that would neither be able to take informed decisions about their career, nor be able to fend for themselves after their playing days, were real."

This afternoon at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos, students from four secondary schools will continue their contest for honours in the 13^th edition of NNPC/Shell Cup for All Nigeria secondary schools Football Championship. They are the last-four standing from a starting line-up of about 5,000 schools from across the country. 

The battle-tested but not battle-weary four-some are: Government Day Secondary School, Gwadabawa, Yola, Adamawa state, Government Secondary School, Gwammaja, Kano, Kano state, Brilliant International Pre-varsity, Akure, Ondo State, and defending champions, Government Secondary School, Owerri, Imo State.  

The Adamawa boys got their state ticket through a lone goal victory over Government Secondary School, Numan, went on to defeat all-comers at the zonal preliminaries played in Bauchi; winning 3-1 against Taraba state, 5-1 against Gombe and 3-0 against Yobe; thus topping the table with the maximum nine points, scoring 11 goals and conceding only two. They qualified for the semi-finals by defeating Government Day Secondary School, Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi state four goals to two in the quarter-final played in Kaduna.

GSS, Gwammaja, Kano, earned the right to fly Kano state’s flag by defeating Government Secondary School, Mijibir 2-0; won the zonal  preliminaries played in Lafia, through one victory - Niger State, 2-1;  a score draw - Kaduna State, 1-1 and a walk-over FCT which earned them three goals and three points in accordance with the championship rules. They secured their place among the top-four at the expense of Government secondary School, Zamfara State at one of the quarterfinals played in Ilorin.

The only private school among the lot, Brilliant International Pre-varsity, Akure, Ondo state walloped state rivals City Academy, Ikare 3-0 to take their place at the zonals played in Osogbo where they went to lead the group with seven points from two victories - Kogi 3-0 and Ogun 2-0 - and a no-score draw against Ekiti. They scored five goals and conceded none.  They bettered Lagos State representative, Ilupeju Senior Secondary School, Lagos 3-0 in the quarterfinals to reach the grand finale. 

The defending champions, GSS, Owerri scraped through 1-0 at the state finals against Secondary Technical School, Okwobor, Orlu, but regained their goal-scoring prowess at the zonals -in Calabar, drawing their first match 2-2 against Anambra state champions, defeated Abia  5-0 and earned three goals and three points from a walk-over Ebonyi state. In the event, they topped the zone with 8 points.and were credited with a total of 10 goals for and two against. Their semi-finals ticket came via a 2-0 quarterfinal victory over Community Comprehensive Secondary School, Okoboh, Rivers State in the quarterfinals.

On offer this afternoon, in the material sense, are cash gifts, certificates of participation and the familiar medals and trophies. Specifically, the winners will go home with the glittering gold trophy, gold medals, certificates of participation, N50,000 for each of the 20 players and a cash award of N2.5million for the school, N1.5million of which must go to sports development. The boys from the second placed team will get the silver medals, certificates of participation, N45,000 for each of them while their school will receive a cash reward of N1.4million. The 20 boys in the bronze medal winning team will, in addition to their medals and certificates of participation, receive N35, 000 each. The school gets N500,000. The fourth placed team is not left out. In addition to the certificate of participation, each of the players will go away with N30,000, while the school receives N400,000.

But all of those prizes, prize money and all of that are not the raison detre for this write-up. The real reason is to celebrate the vision an the consistency of the sponsors and the organizers of this championship which has found a place of honour on the football calendar of this nation. It is such that everybody who is anybody in the Nigerian world of sports and education now drop everything else to attend the grand finale this afternoon, as has become the situation these past few years.

In celebrating the sponsors, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) acting on behalf of its partners, I recall vividly how it took guts and commitment to dabble into the field of secondary schools football sponsorship in 1998 when they took the plunge. If you wonder why, here it is in the words of a top official of the company: “When the idea of introducing the championship came to us in the late 1990s, we had many challenges to contend with. It was not that football competition at the secondary school level was a novelty. No, there had been at least two; but they had been rested due largely to violence that used to characterise the matches particularly among rival schools in the major cities, and poor funding. Poor funding was the result of lack of corporate sponsorship which itself was the result of companies distancing themselves from the potential damage that the violence could do to their image.”

But, the guys at SPDC, with consultant, Segun Odegbami, MON, in the thick of it, had identified a worrying trend in the nation where Nigerian youths, seduced by the megabucks being earned by football stars, were beginning to abandon education for football. The portents were bad. The dangers, of producing many half-literate football stars that would neither be able to take informed decisions about their career, nor be able to fend for themselves after their playing days, were real. 

Continues that official, “there was also the fact that many of the nation’s star footballers were advancing in age and unless there was a kind of nursery to produce replacements, there could be a dearth of well-honed football artists in the medium term. And where else should the nursery be but in the schools, particularly if the tide identified above was to be stemmed.”

These were the rationale for instituting the championship which has been organised by the National School Sports Federation with a lot of help from Odegbami’s Worldwide Sports since then, with so great a success that its incontrovertible that no national team is complete these days without the inclusion of Shell Cup products whether that team be under-16/17, under-21, under-23 or the Super Eagles. Yet the boys didn’t have to leave school to achieve that.

As the 13^th edition climaxes today, I salute the vision and consistency of SPDC, NSSF and WWS even as I recall the great pioneering roles of Rev Precious Omuku, Mrs Elizabeth Fagbure and Bisi Ojediran, among others, all of whom deserve to be proud to have been associated with this enduring vision.

BETWEEN SURVIVING AND THRIVING

Now, there are many reasons why we are a surviving rather than a thriving nation. One of them is the dearth of people-loving leadership. The golden age of Nigeria was the era of Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello and they succeeded because they loved their people enough to want the very best for them. It is that kind of leadership that we must seek to enthrone if we will have anything to celebrate next year.

FIFTY weeks from now, Nigeria will be 50, if the Lord tarries. You can be sure that the golden milestone would be celebrated with considerable fanfare, regardless of the achievements, or lack of it, of the nation over the period. If media debates about the state of the nation at 49 offer any guide, there are probably as many people who think we definitely have reasons to celebrate as think otherwise.

I personally agree with those who say we do not have any cause to celebrate the last anniversary, particularly because, it would have been insensitivity at its worst for us to roll out the drums with our universities shut to industrial dispute, among other socio-economic challenges. But, shall we have cause to celebrate our golden jubilee in October 2010? Frankly, I think it would depend on what we do or fail to do in the brief intervening period? For those with a statistical bent, that is to say, we have one week to redeem each year of our national life yet! And that’s almost ludicrous, isn’t it? But haven’t there been famous injury time redemptions as in football before? Besides, I am a Bible-believing Christian - I believe in miracles.

But I am not going to talk about miracles today. I want to talk about authority, my authority and yours as believers to change things around us. Many of us might recall the four-part series, “Open Letter to Kingdom Persons” published here recently. In it, I tried to draw our attention or remind us, as the case might be, of the unfortunate prevalence of sons of God living the lives of servants. We pointed out that God’s Kingdom is a kingdom of sons, not servants or slaves; that everyone who you are a son of God if you are led by the Holy Spirit. If you are born again, you are open to the leading of the Holy Spirit already, because without the Holy Spirit working on your heart, you wouldn’t have accepted the lordship of Jesus Christ, in the first place. Implicit in sonship is authority; the kind that servants do not have.

It is this theme that struck me as I reflected on the potentials of our nation as we approach 50. As I write this, ours is a surviving nation. A survivor, as Pastor George Pearson of Kenneth Copeland’s Eagles Mountain Church recently said, is only one step above the dead. In other words, any deterioration in a survivor’s case automatically leads to death. Yet, given the abundant resources it has pleased God to locate within our geopolitical boundary, we should be a thriving nation. We should be that land flowing with milk and honey, far, far, far above death.

Now, there are many reasons why we are a surviving rather than a thriving nation. One of them is the dearth of people-loving leadership. The golden age of Nigeria was the era of Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello and they succeeded because they loved their people enough to want the very best for them. It is that kind of leadership that we must seek to enthrone if we will have anything to celebrate next year. How to do it? Let’s enforce our spiritual authority as sons of God to speak what we want into manifestation. No other strategy can beat that.

RE: A NATION DOUBLY BEREAVED
When Nigeria’s Flying Eagles crashed out of the Under-21 World Cup last Wednesday night, my mind flashed to an article “A Nation Doubly Bereaved” (Kingdom Perspective, September 13, 2009), the conclusion of which was lost to gremlin, the printer’s devil. I think the last few paragraphs of the piece can bear repetition. So, here goes:

Interestingly, it is not often that they (football administrators) manifest ineptitude. Sometimes they even strive to get it right, throw money around, organise friendly matches etc, yet things don’t work. Take the (Super Eagles’) match against Tunisia. Do you think those boys didn’t know what was at stake? Do you think they do not want to go to the World Cup - with all that it would do for their career? Are they not experienced enough to know what to do to defend their one goal advantage five minutes to a crucial match? Think again.

Dr Adeleke Olaiya, President, Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF), I believe, put his finger right on it, when he said during the week “that our football problem is intricately spiritual and we must apologise to Ibrahim Galadima, former Nigeria Football Association (NFA) boss for all Nigerians wronged him by disgracing him out of office with just no cause. If he was unable to take us to the World Cup, who will? This is the bitter truth and I stand to be challenged. Nigeria must not be careless with her spiritual life by taking things for granted, we must be sensitive in our public life and ask for forgiveness from God. Then our football will wake up with genuine developmental agenda. God will be with us and give strength to our leaders.”

Save for the fact that the injustice in our football predated the Galadima episode, and has not ceased since, I am absolutely in agreement with Olaiya. The point is this. It is an inviolable moral and spiritual law that you cannot build something on nothing. One of my dear readers, Mr Akintunde Makinde once put it very powerfully on this page in a similar context. Quoting Charles Spurgeon he said “You cannot steal a goose and offer God the gosling” and added “Amalekite oxen are unacceptable as burnt offering. Might is not right but right is right. This is the way forward for the country.”

Gani (Fawehinmi) died a day before our World Cup dreams died. Gani was a source of succour and hope for the common man. So is football. While we can keep Gani’s essence alive by picking up the gauntlet against greed, which is the father of virtually all other vices, we can resuscitate our sports by exorcising the spirit of greed that has held it bound. Are we going to even try?