By Ade Ojeikere

Football is an exciting game to behold. The language is the same. The technicalities and styles differ from team to team, yet the purpose remains the same – to score goals. It behooves the coaches to pick the players who suit their patterns. What stands teams out in terms of the kind of players they have is the resources available to each of them to recruit. Otherwise, the challenges remain the same – win matches and trophies as the case may be.

Jonathan Akpoborie and Richard Owobokiri were two of the best Nigerian players scoring goals with aplomb in Europe. Both of them excelled playing for local teams before heading for Europe. Akpoborie played for Julius Berger FC of Lagos and the country’s U-17 side, Golden Eaglets which won the China 85 Cup. Owobokiri was a gazelle playing for Sharks FC of  Port-Harcourt. As stars who emerged from the domestic league, adapting to the Eagles’ pattern should have been seamless. But our national coaches cast an indulgent eye on them, preferring to use other players. Not much could have been done then to include them in the squad since the coaches were given free hand to operate. Unfortunately, the Westerhoff team did well in the case of Owobokiri – he lost out.

Of what use would it be to discuss fully what transpired between Owobokiri and Clemens Westerhof in the battle for the Eagles top nine striker’s jersey which the late Rahidi Yekini got the nod? Yekini became the king of goals in Africa and the first Nigerian to score a goal at the World Cup in the USA in 1994. This happened because there was a Sunday Oliseh who provided the long-range passes which Yekini utilised to score the goals that brought honour and glory to both the players and the country. Had Westerhof being more dynamic in his choice of players and how the team should play, Owobokiri would have been at the World Cup. And it would have given Nigeria more attacking options, especially when the Italians had incapacitated Emmanuel Amuneke and Daniel Amokachi at the Mundial in the USA. Would Westerhorff say he didn’t take half-fit players to that Mundial because they were long-time members of the team? I challenge Westerhoff to say otherwise.

The argument from some purists that those who play in the Eagles presently are selfish is weak. We have heard this excuse in the past. Who picks them? The coaches or the fans? The coaches ought to have evolved a pattern that would have compelled them to play according to the team’s tactics and game plans. After all, Westerhoff dropped Samson Siasia for deliberately refusing to pass the ball to a better positioned Yekini in one of the team’s qualification games in Cote d’ Ivoire. It could have been Nigeria’s equaliser, but we lost the game 2-1.

I recall writing a stinker in my weekly columns at Thisday newspaper on Johannes Bonfrere’s preference of Babaginda ahead of Akpoborie after the Dutchman released his list for the Atlanta ‘ 96 Olympic Games. A few of my colleagues who were also in America for the Olympics offered the argument of Babangida playing for Ajax. It was laughable because Akpoborie was king in Germany scoring goals against some of the biggest clubs in Europe. The team won the tournament but it didn’t also obliterate the fact that Akpoborie was cheated after having to pull off his coat to play in an international friendly for the side inside the National Stadium, (Sportscity) in Lagos.

Yes, Akpoborie came to the stadium to watch the game in which Togo beat Nigeria 3-1, but was persuaded by some of his big friends who accompanied him to the stadium to change from his party clothes to play for the country. Akpoborie yielded to calls from patriots like him, not minding that he had eaten a bowl of pounded yam and ogbono soup before coming t watch the game. Akpoborie was unjustly excluded when the chips were down in Atlanta. A case of the cabal at work. The paradox of the matter is that most times those invited also play in smaller leagues in Europe where Akpoborie enjoyed tremendous patronage from the Germans and pundits globally who couldn’t believe that Nigeria didn’t consider him good enough for our teams.

Read Also: These Falcons are SUPER

Pray, there was a time when Joseph Yobo was scoring goals for the Super Eagles while our strikers developed clay feet in front of the goalposts. At that time, we had a former Golden Eaglets captain, Wilson Oruma who was painting Europe red with goals but the coach didn’t invite him. I recall asking the coach at a press conference organised by Peak Milk courtesy of Taye Ige’s Hotsports Plc, why Oruma wasn’t included in the new list. The enraged coach lost his cool and said: ” Yes, that is all the rubbish you write in your weekly columns. I read them. Let me tell you, even if the player (Wilson Oruma) was scoring goals in the moon, he won’t be part of this team. Are you a coach?” Talk about club managers’ biases, this was a classical example.

Well, critics then couldn’t do anything to change the tide since the teams were winning games and trophies, most times, though they were nerve-wrenching feats for the team’s lovers to watch. The coaches then yelled at those who dared to talk about Akpoborie or/and Owobokiri describing them as club players, not national team players. Efan Ekoku, Victor Ikpeba, Peter Ijeh suffered the same fate but it was Ikpeba who muscled his way into the team much to the consternation of the coaches who handled the Super Eagles and Dream Team 1 then. Take a bow, Ikpeba, Prince of Monaco. Coaches and officials didn’t like him but he was such a great talent on-and-off the ball.

My problem with all the national team managers has been double standards, making it imperative to ask if the managers are not employees of the NFF? If they are, there is an urgent need for the federation to make sure that team lists are subjected to serious scrutiny, otherwise, we would soon start losing stars to countries eager to give them first-team shirts. Haven’t the managers told us that they base their selection processes on those who pay regularly for their clubs? Isn’t Onuachu one of those who have excelled for his team this season? If yes, why is he being dumped on the standby list? Don’t we know what this unjust act of dropping the best striker in the Belgium league would do to Onuachu’s psyche? Wait a minute, the coaches who pick Onuachu to play for his Belgian side are Europeans. Why wouldn’t our manager pick up his phone to find out how best to deploy him in the Super Eagles?

Perhaps, this is the best time for the federation to get the Eagles manager to establish a working relationship with the body’s Technical Director, Austin Eguavoen, who incidentally is a two-time World Cup player, former coach, and captain of the team to address these discrepancies. No foreign coach would love Nigeria more than Nigerians. If one of the highest goal scorers in Europe is a Nigerian, then he should be a first choice in the Super Eagles.

The Eagles coach should be challenged to find out how best to play Onuachu, especially as the team is lacking good goal poachers. If it means changing the playing pattern of the team to accommodate him, so be it. We are tired of excuses from the manager. We cannot forever keep rebuilding the Eagles when we keep stars such as Onuachu on the waiting list. We can allow the Eagles manager to have his way for the Republic of Benin game. But, Onuachu should be allowed to play against Lesotho, more so, if we succeed to leave Porto Novo unscathed. After all, we need a point to qualify from the two matches.

Enough of the double standards. Onuachu plays regularly in Europe and should be in the team, except they are saying he has disciplinary issues which happily haven’t be raised before now.