We appear to be at the crossroads with Super Eagles manager Gernot Rohr’s in-today, out-tomorrow stewardship, especially with the army of stars struggling to punish seemingly less talented soccer nations. Given our players’ exploits in European football, we should stroll through these so-called minnows in the group matches, if we hope to climb back to the top five nations in the world like we were in 1994 after our debut World Cup appearance in the United States (US). Our target after six World Cup appearances should be to win the Africa Cup of Nations’ diadem as a matter of right.
Indeed, a country’s growth in football isn’t measured by the number of foreign-based players in its squads but by the new names thrown up from the domestic leagues. This attracts European scouts into the country in search of budding talents, who most times come cheap (no disrespect to their innate skills). Such invasions by foreign scouts to the grassroots encourages development. These visitors will be persuaded to partner with the grassroots teams in a bid to benefit fully from the pool of talents in such areas.
The spiral effect of seeing foreign scouts at match venues is that the locals will be further encouraged to get their kids to play the game, beyond the fact that it is a form of recreation which invariably improves the people’s health. The good talents taken overseas return as icons for others to emulate, especially when such a talent returns to improve the living condition of his parents and family members as we have seen with Nwankwo Kanus, Austin Okochas, Mikel Obis et al.
Scouting for players in Europe and in the Diaspora for the Eagles is inimical to the development of the game. Need I restate the new development of wooing young kids from Europe to play for our age-grade teams? Isn’t this the death knell for the game here? The industry can only thrive with sporting activities geared towards getting the youth to dissipate energy on the various sports, not to be indulged in social vices.
The mistake most of the foreign coaches we have employed who don’t work in Nigeria make is that they judge the game from the achievements of the clubs and academies that they see in place, forgetting that they were founded under frivolous circumstances. How many of these academies, for instance, have trained coaches and the right logistics to do the business? Do you expect an untrained coach to transfer the right skills to the talents under his tutelage? Will such poorly trained players be able to compete with the well trained ones in Europe? No way. Hence, Gernot Rohr must live here and set up his own structures which others can key into to standardise the process. Some of the monies accruing to the country for the game’s development can be channelled towards building centres of excellence for football.
In other countries, this process ensures that all the national teams play in the same way. Players discovered are nurtured, exposed and monitored when they eventually become big stars. The essence of having good cadet teams nurtured from these nurseries is for them to grow and garner the experience needed to graduate into the senior national team. A situation where Rohr shuts the gates against our cadet stars leaves them with one option – to play in just any country under the guise of playing overseas.
Sadly, it is only when their exploits are reported in such obscure European leagues that they are called to the Eagles. Of course, they would have lost their sharpness due to the quality of games they play in the coun tries where they are pseudo professionals. Rohr’s argument that the domestic league players are not talented is weak. It is also an indictment on his employers whose duty it is to develop the game.
Four years is enough time to challenge Rohr to discover, nurture and expose five domestic league players across all the national teams. Having Rohr go home with $50,000 for coaching only the Eagles, is unacceptable. He should take charge of the CHAN Eagles, which is the nursery team that should feed the Super Eagles.
Only exceptional players, such as Mikel, the late Stephen Keshi, Sunday Oliseh, Etim Esin, Samson Siasia, Mutiu Adepoju et al, can leapfrog the CHAN team to play for the Super Eagles. With the way Rohr is restricting himself to just the Eagles, the nursery will be filled with poorly coached players who won’t grow into stardom, using the senior team’s platform.
Rohr won’t be the last foreign coach to be recruited. His predecessors discovered several home-based players who got lucrative contracts with European clubs, which helped the local league. These new stars encouraged the star-trek from Nigerian cities to Europe. Today, there is hardly any country where Nigerians don’t play. Players, such as Olisadebe, left the defunct Jasper United FC of Onitsha to play for Poland, when he realised he couldn’t break into Clemens Westerhof’s squad. Indeed, Westerhof dumped high scoring professional Richard Owobokiri in the Brazilian league and John Fashanu of the famous Wimbledon FC of England for Yekini. Need I list how Yekini shook the world with his knack for goals?
Rohr wants to succeed. He picks his best players, but where does this leave the game in the country? He promised a lot about the game here, including making all our teams to have a unique playing style. He promised to train and retrain our coaches, but we have not seen such happen. What we saw in Russia wasn’t pleasant, except for the fact that the Nigerian side was one of the youngest at the Mundial. We salute Rohr for building the Eagles but such reforms should be anchored on the stars in the domestic game.
Already, Rohr is losing grip of the dressing room with the jives thrown at him by Ogenyi Onazi, after his exclusion from the two matches on November 17 against South Africa in Johannesburg and Uganda in Asaba on November 20. Onazi alleged the double standards by the manager at the World Cup, insisting that he ought to have played ahead of those fielded. Onazi, isn’t the coach. The prerogative of who plays and who shouldn’t is Rohr’s.
Ordinarily, ageing stars, such as Onazi, should have been eased out of the squad after the Mundial. Having distinguished himself in the squad since 2013, he will be a liability in the team with his attitude to the coaches and the federation’s chieftains. Onazi’s replacement should come from the league and Rohr should find six home-based lads he can groom to pick the best two.
It is good that Rohr has revealed why Onazi was dropped. The coach stated that he didn’t want Onazi to play using pain killing injections, which is wise. No player should be made to play with any health issue. A country with over 200 million people should have at least three teams of 20 players each, if the coach knows his onions.
Mikel’s reluctance to quit
I’m enjoying the mutual respect between Rohr and the country’s most decorated player John Mikel Obi in terms of when he should play for Eagles again. Mikel has become a regular customer with injuries, which means that playing for club and country is telling on him. He went to China for vacation football and for the megabucks. So, not much is expected of him in the Eagles, beyond his experience.
After Nigeria was eliminated from the Russia 2018 World Cup, Mikel virtually held back tears when he answered the question if he was quitting the Eagles. It was understandable because prior to the last game against Argentina, he was told by kidnappers that they had his father and would kill him, if he raised the alarm of his father being held captive.
It was understandable, having being a national team member since his cadet days. The thought of quitting the game was too heavy for Mikel to bear, although he had the burden of visualising what his father was being subjected to by the kidnappers. Mikel bit his lip while talking to show the pain he was experiencing.
Since the last game against Argentina, Mikel has not returned to the Eagles – no thanks to injuries. Even when he recovered, he pleaded for more time to allow the injury heal. One thing is sure, Mikel is reluctant to play for Nigeria, but cannot muster the courage to say so. He doesn’t want to offend people. Rohr can help Mikel by leaving him out of the qualification matches. Mikel could be listed in proper squad to Cameroon next year as a coach cum player. A passing shot preparatory to his official resignation from international football for Nigeria.
NFF must not allow Mikel quit the game like our previous stars? A well attended ceremonial game in Nigeria against his friends, those he played with at Chelsea, will witness a box office attendance, with the proceeds sent to charity homes or whatever Mikel wants it used for. We must use Mikel to start the culture of sending off our great sportsmen and women.
