Does The Super Eagles Need A Foreign Coach?

by fotbulnary

The malaise of the Super Eagles which has resulted in consecutive failures to qualify for Africa’s showpiece football event, the African Cup of Nations has resulted in calls for Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to appoint a foreign coach. It is all too easy to forget that most of Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the last two cup of nations had more to do with maladministration on the part of the football house as well as the shortcomings of Nigerian coaches.

Firstly, the uncertainty over the future of Stephen Keshi after Nigeria’s participation in the FIFA World Cup in Brazil impacted negatively on the nation’s campaign. Amidst the uncertainty over the coaching position of the team, Congo Brazzaville claimed a 3-2 victory over the Super Eagles in Calabar. That result set the tone for a qualifying campaign that ended in disaster. But the NFF decision to subsequently play the team’s other matches in Abuja and Uyo respectively ended up as a bag of mixed results.

The last match in Uyo where Nigeria needed a win to advance to the tournament, and only managed a draw was one of the bad decision of the NFF that affected the team negatively.  A stadium that was more familiar to the team might have brought about another result. For that qualifying campaign the NFF should take more of the blame than Keshi because of the uncertainty that hanged over his head throughout the qualifying series. 

That the team almost rescued the qualifying campaign after they defeated Congo Brazzaville 2-0 away from home showed that the team under Keshi could have performed better under an atmosphere of certainty.

Secondly, the recent qualifying campaign for the 2017 Afcon in Gabon was again a mixture of insensitive administrative decisions and terrible coaching.

Stephen Keshi started the campaign when the Super Eagles ran out comfortable 2-0 winners over Chad in Kaduna. A couple of months later he was sacked as the coach of the team. Sunday Oliseh was brought in on the basis of his punditry work with supersport. It turned out to be a huge gaffe on the part of the NFF as the former Super Eagles captain clearly lacked the temperament and wherewithal to handle the senior national team. Coupled with the fact that the maladministration at the football house where salaries of the coaching crew went unpaid for months caused him to jump before he was pushed.

The few matches he oversaw as coach, showed that he was nothing different from other coaches. His decision to experiment with players against Tanzania in Dar es Salaam prevented Nigeria from building any momentum after opening the qualifiers with a win. Although, Samson Siasia tried to rescue a sailing ship, the damaged had already been done earlier in the campaign.

However, some coaching decisions made by Siasia in the two matches impacted the team on the day. 
In the first leg of the Egypt match in Kaduna, a more tactically astute coach would have brought on at least a defensive minded player to close shop towards the end of the match as Nigeria were one goal up. Instead he brought on both Victor Moses and Alex Iwobi. Although both players  almost combined to get a goal which Victor Moses missed, a better bet would have been to bring in one of the two, while bringing on a defensive midfielder or another defender in Ogenyi Onazi or Elderson Echejiele. This would have prevented Nigeria from being so open despite leading before the Egyptians equalised.

In the second leg in Alexandria, Samson Siasia practically gave the match to Egypt on the day with his bizarre starting lineup. That players like Alex Iwobi, Moses Simon and Kelechi Iheanacho did not start the match was a psychological advantage to the Pharaohs. Instead he opted for a conservative approach which negated the team’s creativity in a must win match. By the time, he decided to play more expansively it was too late as the Egyptian came out victorious.

The decision making of our local coaches really calls into question their level of objectivity and tactical nous. 

The decision of Sunday Oliseh to invite Haruna Lukeman in his first match in charge against Tanzania was one strange decision that cost the Super Eagles. This was a player that had not featured for the team for three years, and he was practically living on past reputation. That he was hauled off less than thirty minutes into that match reflected his pitiable display as well as the bad decision of Oliseh.

Nigeria coaches seldom use objectivity to invite and include players in their squads. For this alone, a foreign coach could come in handy. I doubt if  any foreign coach will start a player struggling for a starting berth in the Portuguese second division over a player in French ligue One.

Besides the ailing administration of football in Nigeria which the football house is the cause, Nigeria have now gone almost six years without a foreign coach after the experiment of 2010 Fifa World Cup. Since then, the team has had Samson Siasia (twice), Stephen Keshi and Sunday Oliseh. In the past there have been Christian Chukwu, Austin Eguavoen and Shaibu Amodu  It is unlikely that another local coach would be up to the job as it stands, except there would be a second coming as in the case of Samson Siasia.