STORIES BY JOE APU
Former Super Eagles and Nigeria U-23 coach, Samson Siasia has been shortlisted alongside seven others by the Rwanda Football Federation (FERWAFA) from the list of 52 applicants for the men’s senior national team head coach position.
After the pre-selection process held yesterday, at FERWAFA headquarters, the candidates who made it to the shortlist includes Samson Siasia (Nigeria), Antoine Hey (Germany), Georges Leekens (Belgium), Jose Rui Lopes Aguas (Portugal), Paul Put (Belgium), Peter James Butler (England), Winfried ‘Winni’ Schafer (Germany) and Raoul Savoy (Switzerland)
According to the federation, the shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interviews.
The former Nigerian striker boasts of a good résumé having coached Nigeria’s U-20 team the Flying Eagles in 2005 taking them to the finals of both the 2005 Under-20 World Cup and the U-20 African Youth Championship. He won the African Youth Championship and advanced all the way to the world final – before losing to Argentina 2–1.
In 2008, he coached the Nigerian Under-23 Olympics squad to the final against Argentina. In a superbly played series of matches, Nigeria’s team earned the Olympics silver medal. Earlier in 2008, the U-23 team won the inaugural Intercontinental Cup in Malaysia.
On 4 November 2010, he was named as the national team coach to succeed Swedish Lars Lagerbäck.
He was fired on 28 October 2011 for failing to take the Nigeria team to the 2012 African Nations Cupin Gabon & Equatorial Guinea.
He was named by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as the Chief Coach of the Nigeria national football team, the Super Eagles, to be assisted by Salisu Yusuf, Emmanuel Amunike and Alloysius Agu after the resignation of Sunday Oliseh and was later to take the Dream Team VI to win a bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.