You guys, spare a minute in your prayers for the Nigerian men's Olympic soccer team. They have had a very, very rough couple of days.
For starters, they managed to get stuck in Atlanta for days on their way to Rio, thanks to a bungled payment and other woes. They landed in Brazil just hours before their first match against Japan on Thursday.
And then once their match was about to start, their national anthem seemed a little...off.
That moment that had our players and everyone at home like "Dem don change our anthem too? #RioProblems #Nigeria
Like, very, very off. That is a completely different song, what are you doing, guys.
This is not Nigeria's anthem. #Rio2016
That's a wrong #NGR anthem folks. See Mikel shake his head. #Rio2016
What's an awful gaffé.. That was not the National Anthem of Nigeria.. #Rio2016 LOC should be sanctioned for this #NIG #JPN
This is what the actual Nigerian anthem sounds like, which eventually played after boos echoed through the stadium.
View this video on YouTube
So what was the tune that played, leaving Nigeria fans so confused? Well, embarrassingly enough, it was the anthem of Niger. Which is a different country entirely.
View this video on YouTube
You really have to feel bad for the person in the control booth who clearly clicked the wrong file.
Despite the many SNAFUs, though, the Nigerian team went on to defeat Japan 5 - 4, which we are told is a very high score for a soccer match.
