Tag: Emordi

It was American Football Coach, Oail Andrew  Phillips, who once quipped that ‘there’s two kinds of coaches, them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired’.

Felix Okey Emordi Monday joined the list of those fired perhaps for the first time since his Premier League career for Emordi has always had to part with his past employers on mutual consent.

But the signs of his ouster had long been there for the 2005 Confederation of African Football Coach of the Year. As the cliché goes, only the blind wouldn’t have seen the build-up to the decision taken as a first task by the new board of Kano Pillars led by businessman and football buff, Kabiru Baita.

Baita was announced on Sunday by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State as the Chairman of the board of the club that has won the Glo Premier League in the last three seasons, the same day Kano Pillars surrendered a three goals lead in Makurdi to draw with hosts, Lobi Stars. It was one lead surrendered too many for Emordi as Manager and turned out that Baita’s first responsibility had to be to respond to the eager yearnings of the passionate but increasingly restive Kano Pillars fans.

Emordi arrived Kano on January 31, 2014 from Enugu Rangers and having not been part of their recruitment for the CAF Champions League campaign, Pillars’ exit from the competition was not counted against him. He did well to retain the Glo Premier League title that Pillars fell back to and his popularity amongst the ‘Sai Masu Gidans ‘ rose a notch considering he won the title even before the last game of the season. More so, Kano Pillars surge to the front from Match Day 12 and a near unbroken run to clinch the title gave the fans the bragging right over perennial rivals Enyimba International, on whose ground they went to take the cup on the last day.

It has been a difficult season for Emordi and Kano Pillars and in such a situation; the fans cannot disown the team but would always seek for a change in the bench. Pillars’ season began with an unimpressive outing in the pre-season Glo Premier League Tournament where they finished fourth in a six team competition. An early ouster from the CAF Champions League by Moroccan side Moghreb Tetoune on 5-2 aggregate flagged what has perhaps been turning out an indifferent performance in their league title defense.

Last season, Pillars went unbeaten for some stretch of nine games, a run that consolidated their hold at the top after displacing Sharks of Port-Harcourt. The results this term has been a near woeful performance on the road where they have managed just one win and the last draw to Lobi Stars in ten games. The poor results includes a 3-0 hiding in Akure to Sunshine Stars, defeats to lowly sides like Akwa United, Kwara United, Nasarawa United and Shooting Stars.

But the gradual build-up to pulling the sack trigger on Emordi began perhaps with that mauling in Akure which was followed by the first surrender of a commanding lead in the presence of their very loud fans. Pillars had raced to a 2-0 lead against Dolphins and the Port-Harcourt side stormed back to erase the deficit and left Sani Abacha Stadium with a point in the kitty at a time they were having one of their poorest runs  in the league; 11 games without a win. That result gulled Kano fans and there were skirmishes to physically vent their anger on Emordi for whom a special security arrangement was put in place to safeguard him. Before then, there was the defeats in Enugu and Uyo to Rangers and Akwa United respectively, for which some of the fans mischievously sent threat notes on social media asking Emordi not to return to Kano.

Another 1-1 draw in Kano to Wikki Tourists on Match Day 18 fueled the cries of ‘ba ma so, ’ the Hausa language expression for ‘we don’t want’. Now Baita has responded to the wishes of the fans but how this step will repair the damage done to a fourth consecutive title ambition can only be guessed and not predicted.

Emordi despite the downturn in his coaching fortunes remains one of the reference points of contemporary times only comparable to perhaps Khadiri Ikhana with whom he holds the record of being the only Nigerian coaches to win the CAF Champions League. Ikhana won the cup with Enyimba in 2003 and Emordi defended it successfully with the same club the following year. They also share the honours of being the only coaches to have won the Glo Premier League with two different clubs, interestingly, Enyimba International and Kano Pillars.

A member of the illustrious era of the great Enugu Rangers, Emordi will emerge later to coach the club at different times, the most recent being from February 1, 2012 to October 21, 2013 during which they narrowly lost the league to Pillars in a twist of decisions that followed the expulsion of the defunct Ocean Boys and cancellation of all their points. It was Rangers closest attempt at winning the title they last had in 1984. He equally returned to Enyimba on August 30, 2009 and worked with the Peoples Elephants up to November 22, 2011.

His sojourn in Kano with Pillars which started off on January 14, 2014 has thus hit a rough perch on Sunday, July 19, no thanks to the late strike by Tony Okpotu dead on regulation time which denied Pillars their second away win.

• Iwuala is Head of Special Duties at the League Management Company

Kano Pillars coach, Okey Emordi, has admitted that they have to improve and get better if they are to improve on their performances from last year’s CAF Champions League.

The Nigerian league champions will visit South Sudanese side, Al-Malakia on the weekend of February 13-15 for the first leg of the first round of the 2015 CAF Champions league, and are currently participating at the on-going Super 6 pre-season tournament.

And with Africa’s premier club competition set to begin in earnest, Emordi, a CAF Champions League winner in 2004 with Enyimba, says his side must improve if they are to get to the group stages of the competition.

“We have started well but I think we still have to improve and we still have to keep getting better. We won our first game in the Super 6 and lost the second but we have to play better and we have to get better as a team ahead of the Champions League,” he said.

“We want to do better than we did last season and this is a very good opportunity for us to make our mistakes and correct them.”

The veteran coach, however, posited that they have no money problems at the moment, and are only just concentrating on their football.

“We don’t have any money issues at the moment, we don’t. The club has provided everything we need and we just have to focus on playing and doing well,” he added.

The CAF Champions League has become the Holy Grail for Glo Premier League champions, Kano Pillars and to get hold of this very valuable diadem, they have a man in Okey Emordi, who has been there and conquered Africa at club level with Enyimba a decade ago.

In the past five years, the Kano-based club have made four attempts at Africa’s biggest club competition with the last three in 2011, 2013 and 2014 ending in disappointments. Their participation in 2009 remains their best when they reached the semi-finals of the Champions League on the back of edging out Egypt’s Al-Ahly over two legs in the second round.

That year Kano Pillars finished top of their group in the Champions League that had Al-Hilal of Sudan, ZESCO United of Zambia and Al-Merreikh of Sudan to set up a semi-final clash with Heartland. But Heartland stopped them 5-0 on aggregate including a 4-0 win in Kano where Emeka Nwanna and Uchenna Agba scored two goals each.

Current Kano Pillars coach, Emordi, believes that the champions have had enough experience taking part in the CAF Champions League after four failed attempts. Emordi, who helped Enyimba retain their African title in 2004 and won the African Coach of the Year at the same time, however will not be committed to making promises.

“I am sure the Champions League is something Kano Pillars, their fans and everyone in Kano including the government will hope we can win. Every team that takes part in the competition wants to win. The Champions League is a different competition entirely from the domestic league.

“When I won the Champions League with Enyimba, we were the defending champions then and it was difficult because everyone on the continent knew the team. But because we had a large number of those who played in the previous year when Enyimba won, it was good for the team especially experience-wise.

“For Kano Pillars, we just have to work hard so that we can have a chance, create our own luck on the pitch and ride on it too. We just need to keep the set of players we have and may be strengthen a bit here and there.”