UCL: Lookman stands alone as Super Eagles' last survivor - weight of a nation lands on winger's shoulders

One by one, they fell. Bruno Onyemaechi and Olympiacos in the playoffs, Raphael Onyedika and Club Brugge in the playoffs, beaten, ironically, by Ademola Lookman's own Atletico Madrid. 

Nathan Tella and Victor Boniface at Bayer Leverkusen, dismantled by Arsenal over two legs, without the Super Eagles duo. 

And then, most painfully of all, Victor Osimhen, walking down the Anfield tunnel at half-time with a broken arm while Liverpool scored four without him in the second half. 

Every Super Eagles flag in the Champions League has been taken down. Except one - after Atleti survived Tottenham.

Lookman has no business carrying this alone. He only joined Atletico Madrid in February, seventeen days after his transfer from Atalanta, he had already scored three goals and provided two assists in five appearances. 

He hit the ground running at a new club, in a new city, in a new league, mid-season. And now, with Osimhen in a sling and every other Nigerian eliminated, he carries the Super Eagles flag into the quarterfinals of the most prestigious club competition in the world.

He didn't ask to carry this alone. But here he is, one Nigerian. Eight teams left, Barcelona next or let's say AGAIN!

The draw has not been kind. Atletico face Barcelona, a team their own manager Diego Simeone called "the best attacking team in Europe." 

A side that just demolished Newcastle 8-3 on aggregate and a team Lookman has already faced three times this season in the Copa del Rey and La Liga. 

He knows them, they know him. And the last time these two met in the UCL, the stage was considerably smaller.

What makes this remarkable is the context. Nigeria are not at the World Cup. Osimhen is injured and will need surgery. 

The Super Eagles are preparing friendlies against Iran and Jordan, teams warming up for a tournament Nigeria will watch from home. 

There is very little for Nigerian football fans to hold onto right now. And then there is Lookman, the former African Footballer of the Year, quietly doing the thing that matters, in the competition that matters most, when everyone else has gone home.

• UCL Quarterfinal vs Barcelona - First leg April 8, second leg April 14. All-Spanish affair in Madrid and at Camp Nou.

• Lookman's message: "It's a special game against another tough opponent. We need to be ready."

Lookman is the last one standing. In a week when Nigerian football lost Osimhen to a broken arm, lost the memory of a World Cup campaign that never was, and watched the Super Eagles reduced to friendlies, he is the one thing still alive in Europe's biggest competition. That is not a small thing, that is everything.