The Super Eagles’ dream of flying Nigeria’s flag at the 2017 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations Tournament has once again gone up in smoke. It is the second consecutive time that Nigeria, three-time cup-holders, will be missing out of the prestigious competition.
The latest attempt was halted in faraway Alexandria, Egypt, when the Super Eagles were drowned 1 – 0 by the Pharaohs in the return leg on March 29, 2016. The first leg of the qualifier played in Kaduna a couple of days earlier had ended in a painful 1 – 1 draw. It was a battle Nigeria could have won convincingly… they missed a Victor Moses’ second goal cleared off the line by an Egyptian defender.
The return leg in Alexandria was not without its own misfortune. The same Victor Moses saw his low drive denied by the goal post in the dying minutes of the game.
Our overall assessment of the team is that they upped the ante compared to the squad that began the prosecution of the qualification race.
Many factors have been adduced for the Eagles’ failure to qualify for the next tournament. The one that stands out like a sore thumb is the endless crises in the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) since 2010 following the controversial sack of the erstwhile president, Alhaji Sani Lulu.
His successor, Alhaji Aminu Maigari, never got any respite throughout his tenure. His administration was dogged by all manner of court cases but he managed to win an AFCON tournament in 2013 and also qualified Nigeria for the 2014 World Cup with Chief Coach Stephen Keshi in charge.
Perhaps the most controversial NFF leadership in recent times is the current one under Amaju Pinnick.
Pinnick’s apparent incompetence is compounded by all kinds of distractions from some elements in the football circle who see him as a usurper as exemplified by Chris Giwa’s sporadic attempts at claiming the leadership of the federation through legal means.
Then, there was the decision of the federation to sack Stephen Keshi in preference for an inexperienced gaffer in the person of Sunday Oliseh to handle the Super Eagles. Oliseh’s choice was a recipe for failure. Stephen Keshi was fired shortly after leading his wards to a 2 – 0 victory over Chad at the beginning of the 2017 AFCON qualifier. Oliseh came and assembled his own boys and got a scoreless draw against Tanzania’s Taifa Stars in a mediocre performance.
In contrast, the resurgent Pharaohs had won their two previous matches in the group, thus putting Nigeria’s chances of qualifying in jeopardy. A crisis of confidence soon crept in between Coach Oliseh, overrated by Amaju Pinnick as Africa’s Pep Guardiola, and the leadership of the NFF. The bad blood came to a sudden denouement when Oliseh jumped ship two weeks before the decisive double-legged encounter with the highly rated Pharaohs.
The Super Eagles’ painful exit was a disaster waiting to happen. It was an unprecedented development in the history of our football to have three coaches prosecuting a qualification race in less than one year.
to review Nigeria’s qualification failure and chart the way forward.
The feelings in some quarters are that the president of the NFF, Amaju Pinnick, should resign his position because of his naivety and incompetence.
There is also a clamour for the engagement of a foreign technical adviser who should work with local coaches. Others believe in the interim coach, Samson Siasia, because of the way he changed the architecture of the team within days.
The Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalong, has scheduled a meeting for today with the leadership of the federation the show of brilliance exhibited by the squad he put together against Egypt within days to the crucial double-legged matches. As we stated in our previous editorial, it is high time the NFF looked outside the shores of the country for a tested foreign gaffer for the team.
Nigeria has had successful outings with some foreign coaches in the past. Among them were Father Tiko, Otto Gloria, Clemence Westerhof and Bonfere Jo. No one should now have any quarrel with the NFF engaging a competent foreign technical adviser provided it would get our football out of the woods. But in doing so, the federation must go for a competent hand with good pedigree that will be predisposed to turning our football fortunes around at all levels.
Nigeria is blessed with a plethora of gifted players. Our international successes at the age-grade competitions attest to this fact, with most of the boys picked from our soccer academies. The Pharaohs, six-time AFCON winners, were shut out of the tournament for about three consecutive times.
They went back to the drawing board and rebuilt their team with players drawn from the domestic leagues. Only four foreign-based players were injected into their current squad and they play as a team. Nigeria boasts of an array of overseas star players but they play like strange field fellows. It is high time we revamped our local leagues. The USA ’94 squad was made up of domestic players put together by a foreign coach who nurtured them to world-beaters over a period of four or so years.
