NEWS COMMENTARY
NIGERIA’S QUEST FOR A FOREIGN COACH
By Francis Ehikhaese
In a matter of hours, a new football tactician will be named to
take up the task of leading the national team of Africa’s most
populous country, the Super Eagles of Nigeria to the 2010 FIFA
World Cup finals beginning on June 11, in South Africa.
The Nigerian Football Federation began another journey of search
of what it called “a world class coach” for its national team
immediately after the 27th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations
in Angola early this year. Even though the Super Eagles came
third in the tournament, the team’s performance fell short of
the expectation of many Nigerians and for a world cup bound team
for that matter.
Nigeria can only boast of two Nations Cup successes with the
first coming in 1980 0n home soil under a Brazilian coach; Otto
Gloria, and later in 1994 in Tunisia under Dutchman, Clemens
Westerhorf. It took Westerhorf more than five years to build a
team that conquered the rest of Africa and went ahead to propel
Nigeria to her first world cup finals and placement as the fifth
best team in the world on the monthly FIFA rankings.
After the exit of Westerhorf, his assistant Bonfere Joe another
Dutchman took over and Nigeria got a silver medal in the 2000
Africa Cup of Nations co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana. Before
then, he had led Nigeria to a glorious outing in the 1996
Olympic Games by winning a gold medal in the football event in
Atlanta, U.S.A.
All these coaches were dropped for one administrative reason or
the other and Nigerians began calling for indigenous coaches.
The likes of Adegboye Onigbinde, Fanny Amun, Samson Siasia, and
late Yemi Tella took up the challenge and brought home silver
and gold medals in the age grade FIFA organized competitions
like the Under 17, and Under 20 world cup as well Olympic Games
where the country won a silver medal. However, whether
indigenous or foreign coach, the problems had been that of the
Football Federation and Nigerian football fans’ impatience with
the coaches by demanding out right victories at all times
Such approach puts a lot of pressure on the coaches leading to
their sudden dismissal once they failed to win a game or a
championship. Some postulations as to why the indigenous coaches
could not get the needed results from players who ply their
trade abroad is the poor remuneration of the coaches. Most of
them earn pea nuts compared with their counterparts in Europe.
In fact, match bonuses of some of the Nigerian players based
abroad, are twice as much as the monthly take home pay of the
indigenous coaches. Nigeria needs to borrow a leaf from Egypt
where Coach Hassan Shehata has held sway for closed to a decade
winning the Nations cup back to back three times by allowing
coaches to remain on the job long enough.
Before the Ghana 2008 finals of the Nations Cup, there were
calls for the hiring of a foreign coach because the then
Christian Chukwu led technical team was regarded as none
performing. The calls gave birth to the coming of a German,
Berti Vogts.
The same scenario has now played out itself again with the
demotion of Amodu Shuaibu who qualified Nigeria for the 2010
World Cup finals the first to be staged on an African soil-
South Africa.
Evidently, Nigerians are not satisfied with the performance of
the Eagles, in spite of reaching the semi final of the Nations
Cup in Angola. Even before the end of the competition, soccer
fans in the country begun the call on the Football Federation to
as a matter of urgency remove the Amodu Shuaibu led technical
crew and employ a foreign coach to lead the country to the world
cup finals. The fans felt that Amodu lacked the technical
competence to take the Eagles to the World Cup and record good
results. The call forced the Nigeria Football Federation to once
again set up a team of three men to take the search to the nooks
and crannies of Europe and beyond to get a world class coach to
lead Nigeria to South Africa in June.
Initially, the team penciled down a dozen names which included
some the best coaches around the world such as Guus Hiddink,
Luis van Gaal, and Trapattoni. However, the team could not get
the attention of these coaches and had to settle for Ratomi
Djukovic, Bruno Metsu, Glen Hoddle and Lars Largaback. They have
all been interviewed and as the result is being awaited,
Nigerians are hoping that the right man will be picked without
any sentiment or bias.
The FA should opt for a long time contract with a definite
mandate to the tactician not only to take the Super Eagles to
the semi finals of the next World cup, but also to revive
Nigerian football by bringing in new and young talents into the
national team.
