Tag: Oliseh

It is increasingly clear that Nigeria is indebted to the class of footballers who got us our first World Cup appearance in the United States. We have them in all our male national teams. Unless we are told our level of indebtedness to this class of 1994, our football will stand still, recording arithmetic growth than geometric, despite our huge population. But can we make the right decisions to give the game the desired fillip?

I hope that Sunday Oliseh’s appointment would be the last from this class. Oliseh is coming with one or two foreign assistants, who would interpret his tactics to the players. I hope he doesn’t come with a French-speaking assistant with passable English. I don’t want to believe the Belgian name being bandied in the media. I feel strongly that a big country like ours should have her new coaches heralded by the international media because of their pedigree in the game.

I don’t want to be a spoilsport in this matter but I shudder to ask if Oliseh can fix our game that has fallen to its worst rating ever at FIFA. Nigeria is ranked 57th in the world and I’m not surprised. It is our worst placing with FIFA. It hurts because we were once ranked fifth on that FIFA ladder. How are the mighty fallen. But, doesn’t it serve us right?

For the purpose of analysis based on NFF’s decision on Oliseh, which is irreversible, it is seems to me that something good is about to happen to Nigeria’s football. I hope I’m not hallucinating. Our soccer chiefs appear to know where the problem with the beautiful game lies. And I’m tempted to be excited because a new dawn for football in Nigeria, at this time, is the elixir other sports need to blossom.

When our football is run seamlessly by the private sector, firms that cannot compete for the marketing windows in football will fall back on the other sports. The spiral effect of such a new dawn for soccer is that sports would be taken as the real business that it is in other climes rather than the recreational slant which has seen our governments and their officials using sports to siphon cash rather than as a life-changer for the youth at the grassroots.

I wholly welcome this new dawn if it can be sustained because it simply means that the youth in the hinterlands would be effectively engaged in sports. This will invariably take them out of societal vices.

In many villages there are no recreational grounds. The spaces in the primary and tertiary institutions have been built up. Yet the standard of education is falling. Perhaps with a new mentality towards sports, using footballas the litmus test, the private sectors and rich individuals and possibly local governments would see the need to invest in the industry. That will be the day. I digress!

Oliseh is expected to come up with a five –year developmental plan, fashioning a unique playing and coaching philosophy for all the national teams, and will for this purpose, interface regularly with coaches of those teams.

Current stand-in Coach Salisu Yusuf will also be in the new team, but with greater devotion to the home-based boys, otherwise known as Super Eagles B. He will be the interface between the technical crew and the home boys.

“We are also looking at how he will periodically organise clinics and seminars for coaches of clubs in the Nigeria Professional Football League, probably once in a month, so as to strengthen the playing philosophy across board. A robust youth development programme, elite player development strategy and performance programmes to drive higher standards, among other core sustainable development programmes, are also part of the proposal,” Anyansi-Agwu added.

The new mentality that I have craved for our football lies not with the recruitment of Sunday Oliseh or with NFF’s grandiose plans. Rather, the thought of getting two foreign coaches as Oliseh’s assistants is the clincher in this new arrangement.

The key change in mentality in the Eagles rests with the mandate that the assistant coaches have – their job description will be development programmes and working with Clubs’ Youth Teams and certified academies towards developing the game from the grassroots.

This has been the missing link with the Eagles, making the team’s performance look like pouring Andrews Liver Salt into a glass of water. Many players in the Eagles lack motivation. They have seen it all. They are not motivated by Nigerians’ quest for an all-conquering Eagles team. They are interested mostly in what they can get playing for Nigeria than giving their all to ensure we win games. Even if we lose games, our players’ effort could still make the fans applaud them as gallant losers as they walk out of the pitch.

I’m excited. The foreigners would insist on the tenets of their contracts. There won’t be cutting of corners. The foreigners will insist on having all they need to perform because they have a reputation to protect. Oliseh, having lived overseas most of his adult life now thinks and behaves like the foreigners. It won’t cost him anything to shake hands with the NFF president and walk away if promises are not met instead of instigating players’ revolt or standing aloof when players refuse to train.

Most importantly, NFF will respect Oliseh with the presence of the foreigners, who can return to their countries without recourse to the NFF, if things go awry. NFF know they have no reputation in terms of meeting with agreements. So, they would strive to prove their critics wrong.

It won’t be business-as-usual. There will be written criteria for everything. No player will see himself as bigger than the coaches since they know their pedigree. This new plan promises to churn out new boys to fight for places in the Eagles. The Eagles would no longer be the platform for showcasing bench warmers in a country with over 170 million people. The Eagles would no longer be the rehabilitation centre for recuperating players nor would it be the platform for unsung players to increase our blood pressure with their uninspiring performance. Not a few Nigerians have died watching the Eagles play so unintelligently on the pitch.

The Eagles we have watched in recent times think they are doing us a favour. Yet they hit the limelight playing as rookies for our kindergarten teams before making it to the big clubs in Europe and the Diaspora. We have seen players stroll on the pitch when they lose the ball instead of fighting back to gain possession. Yet when they get back to their European clubs, they do what is expected of them when they lose or gain possession of the ball. These instances of lack of seriousness on the part of the players lie with the absence of leadership from the bench, with our all-knowing coaches.

The tardy arrangement of the past between the NFF and the coaches occurred because most Nigerian coaches sought the job on bent knees and never insisted on documentation of their contracts.  A hapless man cannot negotiate when faced with the chances of getting a good job. What counts is the fact that he can earn some bucks. At all at all na winch, like we say in the local parlance.

One wasn’t surprised when Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President Melvin Amaju Pinnick told the international media that the Eagles weren’t friends. The world was shocked to hear that none of the players had John Mikel Obi’s telephone numbers or contacts, including some who were his mates at Chelsea and those who play the game in England.

Equally baffling was the story of Mikel not picking the telephone calls of one of the coaches who was then in London. Couldn’t such a coach head for Stamford Bridge to see his ward? What would it cost such a coach to insist on seeking audience with either Michael Emenalo or even Jose Mourinho, as coach of Africa’s biggest country?

What do you expect of players who greet themselves on the pitch, only when they are wearing Nigeria’s colours? This explains the lackadaisical manner our players approach most games, most times after making promises to Nigerians in the media. I look forward to watching a new crop of players giving their all to make Nigeria regain her giant status in the game, beginning with the African continent.

I look forward to the days ahead when 12 Nigerians would make the Confederations of Africa Football (CAF’s) Africa Footballer of the Year shortlist. I would be thoroughly enthralled watching a Nigerian beat two other Nigerians to win the award.Three Nigerians on the final list won’t be a bad idea. It won’t also be a dream but a manifestation of the workable templates that the new mentality would bring to our game.

With a new dawn and the target given to the foreigners to develop the local league by discovering and nurturing rookies at the grassroots, it won’t be long we have European clubs doing business with our local leagues as we have in South Africa, for instance.

I hope I haven’t beaten the gun. Let’s hope that Oliseh and his two wise men accept the job and all things promised them given for the good of the game in Nigeria.