No rest not a problem for Nigeria

The Nigerian men’s soccer team didn’t show any fatigue from a last-minute trip that brought the players to Brazil just hours before their Rio Olympics opener, beating Japan 5-4 Thursday night.

A mix-up at the airport forced Nigeria to make a late flight from Atlanta to Brazil. The team arrived in the jungle city of Manaus about six hours before overcoming jet lag and the heat in the Amazon city to win a thrilling game.

The team’s spokesman posted a picture on Twitter of the team boarding the plane with the message “here we go” and later displayed images of members going through immigration and collecting luggage.

The team faced the uncomfortable situation of spending the day of its debut at the Olympics aboard an airplane on a more than six-hour flight and facing a Japan team that was in Brazil for several days preparing for the contest.

There are conflicting reports about how the team ended up in this position.

Bunmi Jinadu, founder of United Soccer Africa, disputed reports the team missed its original flight because of a money issue between the Nigerian government and a charter company. Delta Air Lines cited a “communications mix-up” that grounded the team’s original flight.

Jinadu said the problem stemmed from poor planning and coordination on the part of the Nigerian team in leaving Atlanta, where it has been training to prepare for the Games.

He said the team had assumed it could simply buy plane tickets to Rio at the last minute — just like Nigerians do in their home country to book travel.

They then encountered a crush of travelers and lack of flights at the busy Atlanta airport, where several Brazil-bound trips were originating. The team thought it had a backup plan Wednesday, but the plane wasn’t big enough to accommodate the team, Jinadu said.

The flight the team finally boarded was on a chartered Delta jet. A spokesman for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said it stepped in to help the team get to its destination — free of charge — after learning of the flight issue.

The plane normally is used to transport NBA teams, and the same aircraft will fly the U.S. men’s basketball team back to the U.S. after the Olympics.

Atlanta was the site of Nigeria’s greatest soccer triumph as it won the gold medal there in the 1996 Olympics.

A bit early

Want to know who’s going to win that big first-round matchup between No. 1 Novak Djokovic and 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro?

If the draw sheet that was posted online by the International Tennis Federation is to be believed, the victor of that match scheduled for Sunday is already known days ahead of time — and it’s del Potro.

Other info on the site as of Thursday night: 14-time major champion Rafael Nadal apparently is going to lose to Federico Delbonis in a real stunner. Andy Murray is going to improve to 8-0 against Viktor Troicki by beating him in Brazil.

Because of what seems to be a computer glitch, the player posted second in the bracket for each first-round contest in the men’s singles draw is given credit for a victory in the head-to-head listing accessible by clicking on a blue box that says “H2H.”

How easily del Potro will beat Djokovic in Rio can’t be determined since no scores were listed.

Quote of the day

“I’m not going into the Amazon jungle or anything like that. I think that it’s good to be careful, but I’m not going to obsess over it.”

Former Arkansas NCAA pole vault champion Sandi Morris, on the Zika virus and the Olympics