Sunday, November 29, 2009              

We Do Not Need A Foreign Coach

Sir: We do not need a foreign coach. In the junior cadres of Under 17 and Under 21, in which we have largely established dominance in the world, we have used only local coaches. No foreign coach can help Nigeria win the World Cup.

The problem we have been having at the Super Eagles' level is our attachment to foreign-based players who never can blend as a team because they can never have enough time to train together, and our sentimental choice of coaches who in the main are technically bankrupt and can not read matches. We have two outstanding Nigerian coaches in Siasia and Obuh right now. They have proven their mettle at the International level of football and are world-class coaches by any standard. No foreign coach can do better than these two people. It is possible to develop new ones to join them.

We should use the money the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF)would have expended to look for and employ a foreign coach to set up the Nigeria Super Eagles Camp for South Africa 2010 right away under coach Siasia. Siasia should be given a completely free hand to perform. Anything short of this would fail. NFF must not waste our money gallivanting around the world to look for a foreign coach when a world-class coach in Siasia is handy. NFF should set up the camp right away.

Only an African can be patriotic enough to win at that level of football for his country. Foreign coaches run away when the chips are down. They owe African countries nothing, instead we pay through our noses for them to run two businesses, one at home to retire to, and one with us, virtually at a part time basis, to be abandoned when they fail us. And fail us they will because they would also rely on foreign based players who can never have enough time to blend as a team. Our foreign-based players cannot be brought together to play impromptu matches regularly to blend because their clubs dictate their use and yet African teams today, need to be in camp for at least six months continuously to be able to impact positively at the world cup level of football and perhaps to win it.

Foreign-based players, in the African experience, largely do not want to break legs for their country and loose their lucrative foreign club salaries. This is the secret responsible for teams like Mozambique, Kenya, Togo, Liberia, regularly threatening our boys in matches.

Those teams often rely mainly on home based players and know that our super brats would not want to break legs for Nigeria so they attack our boys aggressively to scare our boys who withdraw their legs to save their foreign club jobs.

Forget about the aged and tired Eagles legs. Set up a camp made up principally of local footballers who can not play for their clubs during the next six months or so while in camp and who must stay in camp permanently from now until the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Sprinkle the team with foreign-based youths like Mikel, Martins, Odemwingie, Uche Onyeama etc who are still hungry to make their mark in the world of football. They must make time to blend into the team mates in camp every two weeks.

This is the only approach that would work and transform our football for the better. The Super Eagles that could win the World Cup come 2010, has no space for the Olafinjanas and the Ayegbenis. Even the Kanus are on stand by only, for inspirational reasons.

Naiwu Osahon,
Lagos