Why Eagles fail under local coaches – Kaave
Once again Super Eagles have failed to qualify for a major tournament and Nigerians are lamenting. How disappointed are you? When Nigerians are very disappointed, it is a normal expression of patriotism. But as a person who has managed football for so many years, a former vice chairman of NFA, and keen observer of Super […]
Once again Super Eagles have failed to qualify for a major tournament and Nigerians are lamenting. How disappointed are you?
When Nigerians are very disappointed, it is a normal expression of patriotism. But as a person who has managed football for so many years, a former vice chairman of NFA, and keen observer of Super Eagles for over 20 years, I saw this coming. I have always said the experiment of localizing the technical crew 100 percent beginning from 2000 up to this point has been a dismal failure. And as long as we insist on maintaining that experiment, we shall continue to face the same disappointment. And the reason is simple. 80 percent, if not 100 percent of what is Super Eagles are foreign based players. These are players who are coached by the best coaches in Europe and elsewhere. They are exposed to coaching techniques which most of our local coaches do not know. I don’t see on the local scene a coach who has the psychological capacity to manage the caliber of players that Super Eagles is made of. We keep saying to ourselves that we have very good individual players but that is different from building a team that would play together to produce results. The business of building a team demands more than technical expertise.
Are you therefore queuing behind those who are of the opinion that coach Siasia should be sacked and a competent expatriate coach hired to manage the Super Eagles?
I have maintained this position for the past ten years and I have no regret about it because I know what I am talking about. I was chairman of BCC Lions for so many years and I later rose to the position of vice-chairman of NFA, so I know what is involved. I know what it is to manage those players and let me tell you without mincing words, they look down on our coaches. Our local coaches cannot command them because you must reach the point where in a team you behave like a platoon leader. You have to bark orders that must be obeyed. You say go to bed now and they comply, it is lunch time, and there is compliance, it is time to rest so no parties and they comply. It is either you play according to game plan or you are pulled out. How many of our local coaches have the guts to command the Eagles?
But it is an open secret that Siasia is trying his best to restore discipline in the team and he is not enjoying the needed support of some of the players and their fans. What do you think is wrong?
Let me tell you something. When you try to enforce discipline on someone who has superior advantage over you, it is usually very difficult to enforce such discipline. Let me give you this example which may sound very funny. If you ask a headmaster of a primary school to come and be a principal of a secondary school, no matter how good he is, the students in the secondary school will look down on him. This is the kind of situation we have. Take it that our foreign based players are in secondary school and Siasia is the headmaster of a primary school, how do you expect him to enforce discipline on these chaps who consider themselves super stars?. It’s impossible. When he commands them to do things in line with rules of discipline they would revolt against him.
Currently, Nigeria is 44th on FIFA ranking of football playing nations in the World. Why the sharp and steady decline in Nigerian football?
This is indeed a sad commentary on Nigerian football. There are two key factors that I can identify. One of them is a lack of long term consistent planning. And when I say long term consistent planning, I look at the first example in Westerhof who adopted a long term plan for the Super Eagles in the early 90s. He took time to groom his players and that made us to win the 1994 Nations Cup in Tunisia. The same team went to the World Cup in the US and did very well. This is what I call consistent long term planning. And after we disengaged Westerhof, his assistant Bonfere took over and managed to stay on till 2000. And from 2000 we started a local component experiment. We started with Amodu Shuaibu, we combined it with Festus Onigbinde, we brought in Christian Chukwu, we brought on Austin Eguaveon and then we have a spell of foreign technical assistants that were short lived and now we started the same experiment with Siasia. I can say with every confidence that none has been a long term planning. These are short term, quick fixers which don’t work in football.
The second reason that I see clearly is that even as football today is business, the first thing you need do is to make a name. Players are now going for money before the name and in the process; they lose the money and would not be able to make a name. It is when you make a name in football that you attract money. It is not the other way round. Everybody is out to make quick money. Even the administrators are in a hurry to make money. You can see some of them are guests of the EFCC. Coaches are not exempted. I have heard players now compromise their coaches by bribing them so that they can be featured. These are part of the problems.
Most Nigerians believe the present Super Eagles are average players and no coach can succeed with them. What is your own assessment of the quality of our players?
Well, the caliber of players that we had in the 90s up to early 2000, we may no longer have them and I am talking about ex-internationals like Uche Okechukwu, Taribo West, Jay-Jay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Emmanuel Amunike, Mutiu Adepoju, Dan Amokachie, Rashidi Yekini and a host of others. They all strived to first make a name using their commitment, discipline and focus and having made a name, many European clubs came looking for them with mouth watering contracts. It was not a matter of long trials in Europe as is presently the case. Today, even our great Mikel Obi, I cannot remember the last time he scored for the Super Eagles. And he plays as if nothing matters to him but not in his club because he knows that such lack-luster performance cannot give him a shirt in star studded Chelsea. I am only using him as an example. There are so many others.
Super Eagles would not be attending the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. How do you fancy the chances of the team qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil?
Why do we want to qualify to be at the world Cup? Is it just to make up the number?. If we have a team that failed us for the nations Cup, why should we insist on us presenting a team at the World Cup? Do you want us to be disgraced again? You saw our performance in South Africa. It was very lackluster. We are not ready. If we are not ready let us admit and sit down to plan. The World Cup is a four year event. Let us sit down and plan for 2018. It makes more sense. Then we would do a good showing of it. We just have to come up with a plan that must be followed through and that would lead us to credible result. Nigeria must not insist on hoisting her flag at the 2014 World Cup. Let us work towards 2018 World Cup.