Nigeria Content Online

The South Africa 2010 World Cup has come and gone leaving different memories for different people.

While the likes of
Cesc Fabregas and Andres Iniesta are relishing their first World Cup
triumph, Super Eagles striker Yakubu Aiyegbeni will wish he was not
part of the biggest football showpiece on the African continent as his
blooper against South Korea in the Eagles last group match seems to
still be haunting him.

The former Julius
Berger of Lagos striker is missing from a 30-man list of players
selected for Nigeria’s second Nations Cup qualifying game against
Guinea, which comes up on October 10 in Conakry, Guinea.

This is the
Eagles’ third match after the World Cup and there has been no look-in
yet for Yakubu who is one of the country’s leading scorers with over 18
goals; he is also one of the few players that have hit the 100 goal
mark in the Premiership.

However, the
situation for Yakubu now at Club level is worrisome as well. He is yet
to start any league game for the Toffees managing just two substitute
appearances so far.

The £12 million
striker has equally depreciated in value with his current employees
ready to part ways for a lesser fee of five million pounds.

For
ex-international, Garba Lawal, Yakubu’s exclusion from the latest list
of invitees into the Super Eagles team might have nothing to do with
his performance at the World Cup.

“You cannot just conclude that he is being excluded from the Eagles because of the goal he missed at the World Cup.

The manager
determines the kind of players he needs for different games. The Guinea
match is not the end of the world so he can still be considered. Once
he starts performing well for his club I think he might still be
invited,” Lawal said.

Nigeria is different

While Yakubu’s
mistake proved too costly for the country as it contributed to the
early exit of the Super Eagles, his was not the first and won’t be the
last. Roberto Baggio missed a penalty that would have won Italy the
World Cup at U.S.A. 1994 but was not given the cold shoulder by the
Italian football federation. Similarly an overconfident Asamoah Gyan
missed a penalty that would have given Ghana a historic and
unprecedented semi-final berth at the World Cup in South-Africa and yet
he has not been treated like an outcast in the Black Stars team.

Indeed, anyone who
watched Manchester City’s third week Premiership fixture against
Sunderland would have seen Carlos Tevez’s terrible miss in that game.
Manchester City went on to lose that game 1-0, but the club is not
blaming Tevez.

Sani Kaita’s red
card at the 2010 World Cup was also a sour point at the Mundial and
despite regular playing time at his new club in Ukraine. Keita is yet
to receive an invitation to play for the country.

A new order

The exclusion of
both players however has not affected Acting Super Eagles coach, Austin
Eguavoen in any way. Rather, the coach is being commended for his
departure from his predecessors’ habit of shunning home-based players
when drawing up a list of footballers to be invited to the senior
national team.

The former Eagles defender has given the home-based players equal opportunity like their foreign based counterparts.

Enyimba coach, Okey
Emordi, is pleased with the move. “I must say that Eguavoen is a brave
man for picking half of the team as local players. It is good for the
league, and I must say I am also happy that Enyimba has the most
players in that list, which shows that the national team selectors are
following the happenings in the league,” said the former African Coach
of the Year award winner.

Emordi says the
move has been a positive one for his club and was partly responsible
for Enyimba’s dominance in the Nigerian league last season.

Kano Pillars’
gaffer, Salisu Yusuf, believes that Eguavoen has taken the right step
in naming as much as 15 NPL players for the camping exercise ahead of
the trip to face Guinea in an AFCON qualifier on October 10.

“He has done a wonderful job in giving the home-based equal chance of fighting for places in the national team.

This is what the
local players need to boost their confidence rather than run them down
because we have some very good players,” Yusuf, a former Lobi Stars’
coach told SuperSport.com. On his own part, Coach of Crown Football
Club, Godfrey Esu, believes that Eguavoen is taking the bull by its
horns.

“Eguavoen has shown that he is not afraid of trying the home-based
unlike Amodu, who gave them little or no chance. I believe that
Eguavoen must have learnt from Amodu’s mistakes and that is why he has
named equal number of players for both foreign and locally-based
players in the team,” Esu said.