Tag: Eagles coach

CHANGE is here. Yes. And no – not in the Super Eagles. We need it badly, otherwise we won’t beat any average soccer team.  We need to introduce much younger players who are hungry for glory into the team, not those who have seen it all and are unwilling to quit the scene honourably.

Our search for new players should be targeted at the grassroots. Such a search must be done by those who have eyes for new talents who are truly the ages that they claim. But, before this is done, the NFF must develop a template that will seek to correct all the flaws at the grassroots that have crippled the game.

One of the Africa Cup of Nations heroes, Barrister Adokiye Amiesimake, has provided the best guide towards solving these problems at the grassroots. He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday: “When we have been able to get our grassroots right, every other thing will fall in place; not the usual fire brigade approach we always apply. We should be focusing on developmental programmes, rather than engage merely on competitions; we need to re-orientate football fans about long term results and not immediate gratification. Things should be done as they should; things will be a lot better; there are rules that should be adhered to.”

Having the majority of Super Eagles players coming from Europe doesn’t help the game to grow at the grassroots because any new talent discovered disappears to Europe, most times with shylock agents, knowing that it is the easiest way to play for Nigeria. Nobody can blame these home grown players because they are owed several months’ salaries without regulations to ensure that their wages are paid promptly. The effect of these structural defects is what we now find in most of our national teams, especially the Super Eagles.

Most soccer pundits struggled to watch the sloppy first half of last Sunday’s international friendly between Nigeria and South Africa. At some point, my phones were jammed with calls from concerned Nigerians seeking to know if I was watching the game.

Most of the players struggled to string passes together. The South Africans rang rings around a clueless Nigerian side battling to contain their hosts. As is typical of the Eagles under this coaching crew, our man-of-the-match was goalkeeper Daniel Akpeyi, who in the first instance was not in the initial squad that lost 1-0 to the Cranes of Uganda, penultimate Wednesday. Akpeyi’s inclusion in the South Africa-bound Eagles resulted from goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama’s feigned backache. This writer holds Enyeama responsible for the Ugandans’ goal because Whispers from that match suggested that some of the boys didn’t know their mates’ names and so resorted to calling them by their jersey numbers. Such was the folly of our players against Uganda that it didn’t come as a surprise when the Akwa Ibom governor aptly described their outing as “rubbish”.

I have watched the Uganda match’s tape again and still can’t find where and how Enyeama got the back injury. Enyeama hasn’t changed his attitude towards the national team. Penultimate Wednesday was his day with history, when he became the second Nigerian to play 100 times for the Super Eagles.

With such historic setting, Enyeama ought to have been the first player to arrive in Uyo, his home town, to welcome the new boys. He didn’t, even when his team played its last game on March 20. He had five days to meet the game on March 25. He didn’t. He arrived in Uyo on March 24 at 11 pm. Had Enyeama trained with the boys on Monday and Tuesday, he would have known how to communicate with them during the game against Uganda. Team understanding comes with training as a unit. It is no rocket science.

The coaches showed who they were by starting Enyeama, not knowing the consequences of such an action. They merely pandered to the sentiment of celebrating his 100th cap. A stern manager would have kept Enyeama on the bench for late coming and introduced him in the second half to a thunderous ovation, especially if the Eagles were leading then. Our coaches’ fixation about how the team should look at all times beclouds such judgment of dropping Enyeama for late arrival.

With coaches renowned for lacking the courage to take risks with players’ selection, I wasn’t shocked when the story broke that Eneyama had opted out of the South African game. I told my colleague Jide Alabi during the Silverbird Television/ The Nation newspaper’s collaboration sports show last Friday that the Eagles won’t be beaten by South Africa last Sunday to shame a ducking Enyeama.

On that television show, we laughed at Daniel Amokachi’s claim that he didn’t pick the players who lost to Uganda, yet he didn’t opt out of the game like Enyeama. Thursday’s pronouncement by Enyeama of his likely retirement should compel the NFF to ensure that he isn’t invited for any international friendly to allow the coaches test the budding goalkeeper that we have. Akpeyi can be given a string of matches to improve on his confidence. The others too should be fielded in one half of each game.

Our coaches must guide against the scenario in which the difference between Enyeama and the others is so clear. Two or three goalkeepers must be trained by creating competitions among them in the way they are fielded for matches. It amounts to a big failure of our coaches that Enyeama’s exit from the Eagles will create problems for the team than a relief for the coaches in picking his substitute.

The NFF must start the process of organising a befitting send forth game for Enyeama, where all his friends can play against the Eagles at the Uyo International Stadium. The logistics of organising the farewell game should start now.

Happily, Enyeama said Thursday: “I tell you the truth, will love to stay as long as possible but at some time you need to let it go. You need to let others take over.”

“I really wish I can go on forever but I can’t, so Nigeria should start grooming someone to take over from me, and that is what I wish. But for now I don’t know how long I can go so there has to be someone to take over,” he told thenff.com.

What Amokachi succeeded in telling us was that his chief coach picked the boys by publicly denouncing the list of players who lost 1-0 to Uganda. One doesn’t see any significant difference between those who drew that game against South Africa and those who lost the first game. Perhaps, Akpeyi, who shone like a million stars, especially his penalty kick save. But Akpeyi would have remained in his local club in Warri, had Enyeama not opted out of the trip to South Africa. What a pity? The coach ought to have consulted his assistants for their inputs before releasing the list to the NFF?

One thing is clear- the Eagles need a more competent technical crew to prepare the boys for major assignments. Amokachi’s refusal to accept responsibility anytime the team plays shows that he cannot lead the pack. The Eagles’ wobbly performance against Uganda and South Africa explains why tactically they play awfully. Whereas other teams improve on their game in the second, the Eagles continue to decline, making it imperative to ask what the coaches tell them at half-time.

It is interesting to note that coaches, such as Christian Chukwu and Garba Lawal, are advocating for the rebuilding of the Eagles through the home grown players. The problem with that arrangement is that we would have effectively closed the budding careers of players such as Ahmed Musa, Victor Moses, Kenneth Omeruo, Brown Ideye and even experienced ones, such as Enyeama, Efe Ambrose, Godfrey Oboabona and others.

The home-based edition of the Africa Cup of Nation provides the best platform to showcase our home lads but for international friendlies, an admixture of both clans would be the best alternative. One would also suggest that the crop of players in both the Dream Team IV, Nigeria’s Olympic Games squad and the Flying Eagles must be integrated into any team we hope to use for subsequent international matches.

If the NFF is stuck on extending Stephen Keshi’s contract, they must act fast. Keshi’s records are remarkable, but the world isn’t sleeping. Any team pitched against Nigeria gets to study our past tapes. And if Keshi doesn’t update his knowledge, the Eagles will continue to fumble because the opposing teams will exploit the Eagles’ weaknesses to beat us. The era of playing blindly against any opponent is gone.

Uganda’s coach told the media at the end of the game in Uyo that his boys watched 27 tapes of Nigeria’s matches, preparatory to the tie which they won 1-0. It simply means that the systems are the same even with different players. How did Amokachi prepare ours?

If we must expose the home-based players for such onerous task, then the NFF men must grade the domestic league coaches to remove the unqualified ones. This idea of having all manner of people handle teams simply because they played the game sometime ago is ridiculous. Football is now scientific.