I hate to know that our football can go down. It ought not be, given our population and abundance of natural talents. The truth is that our football fortune is like a pendulum, it goes up and down, the downward swing some of the time is such that some of us are embarrassed. I strongly believe this would not have been if we had a football culture just like the North African nations, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, and a few others; even when the football fortunes of these nations experienced a decline, we agree playing them is always a difficult encounter. The other reason could be mediocre management that we have always had at the Nigerian Football Federation. Since they often lack quality, they rely on manipulation and playing of funny games for their survival. When those funny games backfire, they disgrace the nation and leave themselves stranded; instances include occasions when we couldn’t pull through to major football tournaments like the African Nations’ Cup, the World Cup qualifying series, and not forgetting the manner NFL engaged Sunday Oliseh as coach of the Super Eagles, how the team wobbled until Oliseh’s unceremonious exit.
Each time our omissions lead us to a flounder, we are bewildered. And when it looks like the fog has cleared, we get up, dust off our buttocks, and begin again, since life must continue. With the Super Eagles we have started again and I guess very soon we will begin again to build Under-20 and Under-17 teams. I will leave those ones and concentrate on the Super Eagles which is the main issue for now because we cannot again joke with the Russia 2018 World Cup. We earnestly have to be in Russia, it shouldn’t matter which nations are in the same group with us in the qualifiers, which fellow compatriots have expressed fears – Algeria and Cameroon. Those nations should fear us, if we had a good administrative system. There is no way an elephant or a cow would become the size of a goat just because it purged. If we have committed administrators, determined players and a government that knows major football tournaments should be taken as national challenge and if they have ability to get the citizens to key into it, Super Eagles winning all their qualifying matches, both home and away, would not have been an issue. All that would have been done is provoke the citizenry into a frenzy and the spirit of the players would catch the mood and from there we roll.
It is not too late and I hope the government can wake up to its responsibility in this regard. For the Eagles, I am happy at the re-building process, the decision to give every good player opportunity to try out themselves is a good option. I want to believe they will see the gesture for what it is, our nation recognizing their person, talent and usefulness to their motherland. It behooves on them to reciprocate this recognition by posting excellent performances. The Super Eagles I watched under the new coach, Gernot Rohr, against Tanzania paraded experienced players, no doubt and were good but I would not fail to observe that the team lacks creative playersplayers. I didn’t find any player that could single-handedly determine the direction or tempo of a game, this is with respect to Mikel Obi and others that formed the attacking midfield. None of them has the creative sagacity of players like J.J. Okocha and the cunning skills of Kanu Nwankwo. If truth be told, and if we want to return Super Eagles to her towering position in African football within a short time, I would request we become a little more creative and adventurous by seeing the need to immediately call back Okocha and Nwankwo to national duties. All we need do is to use each of the players for between fifteen and twenty minutes in each of the halves.
Some may have issues with their age, but we have all seen them recently display and many of us believe their presence for few minutes can make a whole lot of difference. The team has good strikers but the goals are not coming because through passes are not as quick, penetrating and displacing as to what Okocha can do and that is what the Eagles need to open defenses particularly crowded ones as we are likely to experience playing Algeria and Zambia at home. We would need the services of such players in our away matches where we require to score very early and cause our opponents disorientation. I watched Victor Moses and Ahmed Musa, they had good runs and like some of the others too, who were in the front line, their runs were wide and their crosses very amateurish, most times targeted at nobody. No team scores goals taking that option. For goals to come, players must run in and ensure passes are well targeted so that on one or two touches goals are made.
I heard the new coach talking about bringing in more strikers; he may have a point but that is not the most reasonable thing to do, the issue about not scoring many goals has nothing to do with the caliber of strikers in the team, it has much to do with absence of definitive pattern for bringing goals to be. I was even baffled to see our players just hit a shot at goal without those split sighting to identify where the openings are, it was more ridiculous seeing professionals directly in front of the goal mouth heading the ball very wide into the open air. Most of our sport kicks never threaten the opposition. The defense still require a lot of work on. Those are the areas to improve on, I must give it to them, that was their first match under a new coach yet some of these fundamental tactics must be done with very quickly because we don’t have time.
For the NFF, I want to believe the technical department has marked out how they envisage the team to win their points. In theory it is good to say we must win all matches, but technically speaking, some should receive far greater attention than the others.
For instance, we should aim to win well in Zambia because a team like Cameroon can beat Zambia 3-0 in Ndola, Zambia. At home we should also aim to win maximally not one or two goals. If we plan well, and find a way to beat the delay antics of the Algerians, their usual attitude of feigning injuries to kill time and their cautious approach including crowded defense when playing away, we can beat Algeria in Nigeria by three goals to nothing. I saw Zambia play Kenya in the AFCON qualifying series and one thing I took away is t hat the Super Eagles have to be a mobile, energetic team ready to play 120 minutes if need be to overrun the other teams in that group. Zambia is skillful, sleek and very fast, Algeria will be so at home.
I have watched South African teams overwhelm North African teams away and the secret was contesting the ball and space for 90 minutes.
We must encourage the Super Eagles to qualify.

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