Tunde Akinwande: Football Writer From Lagos

I am Tunde Akinwande, a house football writer based in Lagos, Nigeria, and mine is the first voice you meet on the shared league, club and head-to-head pages here. I write for readers in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda, whether you call the game football or soccer, and my slant is the fan's memory checked against the record book.

Think of me as the friend at the viewing centre who remembers the year as well as the score, and who knows his dates the way a danfo conductor knows his stops. If you give me a few minutes, I will set out how I watch the game and what I cover, then show you how to read a call when I make one.

Who I Am and Where I Write From

I write from Lagos, a city where a football argument can run far longer than the match that started it. I check every claim against the record before I repeat it. I am a house writer, so I hold opinions and I test them against the record, and I do not claim a playing career or a seat in a press box. What I bring, in my opinion, is the patience of a lifelong fan who would rather be exact than loud.

How Do I Watch the Game?

I watch with the record book open, because memory is generous and a date is not. What am I looking for when the whistle goes? Usually it is one defining match, the game that explains a club or a rivalry better than a season of averages ever could. I build the writing around that match, with its year, and let the rest of the story hang from it. Wherever a Nigerian is on the pitch, I ask what the game means for the Super Eagles, because a club performance in Europe tends to become a national team question in Lagos by the evening. I ask the same question about players representing Kenya's Harambee Stars, South Africa's Bafana Bafana, Ghana's Black Stars and Uganda's Cranes. It is a lens that many of my readers already share.

What Can You Expect From My Pages?

My beats are league hubs, clubs, head-to-heads and national teams, with the Premier League and Champions League layers written first. The live numbers sit in the data modules above my words: the table (the log, for readers in South Africa), the fixtures, the results and the records, all of which update after every match. I do not repeat them, and I explain instead how to read them and what decides a competition, in words that should still be true next season. Every historical fact carries its year. The African angle runs through all of it, from the Africans who have worn a shirt to kick-off times given together in WAT, EAT, SAST and GMT.

How Should You Read My Predictions?

When I make a call, it comes as a probability with a reference price beside it, and it is my reading of a match, never a promise about your money. What does that mean when you are reading one of my calls? If I rate a side as likely to win about six times in ten, then I am also telling you that the other four are real. The reference price is there so that you can compare my number with the one in front of you and decide whether the gap is worth anything. The calls that miss stay on the record beside the ones that land, which is how it should be. Treat my analysis as you would a well read friend before kick-off: hear me out, then check the record for yourself.