CHAN Eagles players and coaches must have been stunned with the cold reception they got at the Muritala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos Tuesday morning. They must have been wondering if such empty halls would have greeted their arrival, if they came home with the trophy. Such is life. Nobody loves losers. Failures are orphans. If they had beaten the Moroccans to lift the trophy, the celebration would have been wild, unlike what happened Tuesday morning when a few supporters welcomed them back home.
Of course, there was nothing to celebrate, hence soccer faithful and indeed the media didn’t think being at the Lagos airport lounge as early as 1am for a contingent slated to touch down at 3am was worth their while. Can the players explain how they played without forcing the Moroccans to concede a corner kick? We didn’t play a corner kick against the Moroccans over 90 minutes. Isn’t this strange?
I wish our coaches and administrators could learn a few lessons from this experience to understand that with Nigeria’s population, only the trophy is good enough for us in any continental sports event, including soccer, obviously our most popular sport. Our coaches and administrators toy with our emotions and insult our sensibilities when they parade the kind of team we saw at the 2018 CHAN in Morocco. We wouldn’t have had any business in the finals, if our two goalkeepers – Ikechukwu Ezenwa (in two games) and Dele Ajiboye in the semi-finals game against Sudan – had not been at their best. It is unthinkable for goalkeepers to be Man-of-the match in games involving Nigeria and soccer minnows Libya, Sudan and Angola, with due respect to their nationals.
Matches involving Nigeria and the aforementioned countries should be a stroll in the park, given our world rating. Therefore, our coaches and those in charge of the domestic league should begin to see the humiliation in Morocco as a wake-up call to change from their docility and develop the game to the level where it is seen as a business that attracts corporate players. Nigeria’s shambolic outing in Morocco robbed the game of its best opportunity to attract soccer-loving Nigerians to the domestic league.
Most stadia in the late 70s until the mid 90s were filled, largely because of what they saw from their representatives at big soccer fiestas. It was easy to predict that games involving Shooting Stars and Enugu Rangers would be a box office since their players were our stars in the national teams. Most stadia where Shooting Stars or Enugu Rangers visited for league matches had their tickets sold out because people wanted to see their favourite players in action. they wanted to have autographs and pictures with stars in both teams. Not so anymore. Those who run the domestic league are interested parties in assembling and selecting players and coaches before big competitions.
It is not true that the Moroccans played with their national team. Only one player from their domestic league is in their World Cup bound team and he grew up in Belgium. he also didn’t play at CHAN. So, no excuses for our humbling by the Moroccans. In fact, had Kenya not lost the hosting rights, perhaps Morocco wouldn’t have taken part in the CHAN tourney. No one should tell us that our team was ill-prepared. Were most of these players not part of last year’s La Liga tour in Spain? Did they not tell us it was part of our preparation for CHAN? Why can’t the league organisers draw a programme that will ensure that our competition aligns with the European leagues? If we didn’t start our league on time, whose fault? The world cannot wait for us. If people don’t know how to run the league beyond massaging their ego, they should step aside. What does it take to run the league from August to May like it is done in other climes? All efforts must be made to end this season’s league before the World Cup begins on June 15. That way we can align our league with others. Those who run our domestic league owe Nigerians an apology.
Salisu Yusuf is a good coach, given the way he handled some domestic league clubs. The team we saw in Morocco wasn’t Yusuf’s. It was the league cabals’ squad; many of them were taken to Spain last year. Most of the players are targeted to be sold to European clubs, but need one international competition to increase their values in the next transfer window. Yusuf simply erred on the side of caution by fielding what appears to be a permanent list of players in the office of the league organisers. The essence of CHAN is to introduce new players from the grassroots to prominence, yet our team was populated by those who had seen better days in the domestic league and those who had failed in the African and European expeditions in search of the golden fleece.
The CHAN squad was poor and couldn’t have won the trophy. I just hope those who think the domestic league is theirs have learned the hard way. Sadly, Yusuf couldn’t beat the traps which the system set when a national team is drawn from players in the local scene. Club owners and their ilk in the domestic league should cover their faces in shame, given the shambolic outing of the CHAN Eagles in the final game.
They have failed to establish a system where the best players emerge weekly and indeed monthly, with these best stars playing against the league leaders at the end of each month. This system would have kept the players busy and provided the platform to pick the best in the league at short notice. So, the argument by supporters of the league organisers that the team was assembled in weeks is bunkum.
I have suggested this format to the league organisers several times. Since the idea isn’t theirs, it was put aside. I wonder what they tell sponsors and how they hope to leverage on these firms’ sponsorship packages. The league body needs to have a template to evaluate competition to pick the best. Such competitive platforms bring data, which are based on occurrences in the league, not how a coach or club owner feels. It is easy for ardent followers of the EPL to pick England’s first 11. Where there are injuries, they know who to pick because the league has a gauge of performance. The beauty of this kind of system is that nobody tells an ageing player when to quit. He already knows his successor.
With the way Kane, Dele Alli, Rashford et al are banging in goals in Europe, veteran Wayne Rooney retired from the England side to face club assignments. Not so in Nigeria where players and coaches are recycled.
I won’t blame the players because they didn’t pick themselves. They played according to the coaches’ instructions. The coaches are blaming injuries for last Sunday’s. shameful show, That is laughable; they ought to have picked talented players, especially the utility ones who can play in more than one position. That is why there is a 23-man squad for tournaments.
It is sickening to note that domestic league players aren’t good enough for the country’s world Cup, largely because the regulators of the game have failed to enforce the rules. A situation where players are owed salaries won’t attract foreigners to our league. In the past, foreign players, such as Edward Ansa, Lotis Boateng, et al, played in our league. Others, such as Boateng played for Nigeria, even as a Ghanaian. Edema Fuludu went to the World Cup as a home-based player even as he combined playing soccer with his Business Administration course at the University of Benin, Benin City. Today, Edema is a Masters degree holder in that discipline. I won’t be shocked to learn that he paid his fees from playing the game. Imagine if salaries were being owed at that time?
It is ridiculous that the league regulators couldn’t find the time to inspect the stadia where matches would be played before the season. Footages from live matches have shown disgraceful pitches that are like deserts. Lush green pitches add to the look-and-feel of the stadia on television, especially when players slide on them in celebration. Can our players slide on such bumpy and balding pitches?
Our players won’t beat others if the quality of coaching in the league is poor. The regulators must raise the stakes for coaches in the elite class. Coaches must be trained and not just because they played the game. If it means clubs getting foreign coaches to help raise the bar of coaching, they should do so. Our coaches are contented in being recycled by indolent clubs who want to run as charity homes and not as businesses.
Governors who own these clubs should assign competent administrators and coaches to these clubs, if they hope to recoup their investments. It is sad to watch governors who own clubs patronise foreign clubs, yet their players and coaches are unpaid.
