Nigeria Content Online

The Super Eagles ought to be among the elite sides in world
football and their current status is unworthy of a side once ranked number
five, said the team’s assistant coach, Simon Kalika.

The Super Eagles are currently ranked 32nd in the world, a far
cry from their April 1994 ranking of number five but the Dutchman believes the
situation will change for the better in the foreseeable future.

“I sincerely believe that Nigeria should be among the top ten
countries in the world,” Kalika said on a television programme monitored in
Lagos. “There’s a lot of development in other countries, even in Asian
countries like South Korea or North African countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and
also in Cote d’ Ivoire and Ghana.

“You could see development in all these countries is going on
while it is (heading in the opposite direction) for the Super Eagles.

He then added: “It is not something that we can achieve within a
week or in two weeks time, but we know what we want and if we can achieve it;
if we get the time to do it, we will.

“It is a major challenge but I am so confident that we will make
the difference in the coming years.”

Football underachievers

With a population of over 150 million people, and with thousands
of footballers plying their trade within the country as well as overseas, it is
surprising to many that Nigeria is underachieving in football while a country
like Holland, with a far lesser population than Nigeria, is regarded as one of
the world’s top sides.

“We only have 16 million people but we’re always going to the
World Cup,” continued Kalika. “We got to the final of the last World Cup but
that was not because we have better players or more talented players in
Holland, but we have better educational programmes.”

He then added: “We have good pitches, we have good, educated
coaches. The whole package is there. The talent here (in Nigeria) is vast.

“There are so many good players but the structure to develop them is not on
ground and that is something that we must work on because the moment we work on
that structure, I don’t think there will be any country that can have better
ball players than Nigeria.”