Nigeria Content Online

It
has been an eventful year for Nigerian football. The bad reasons are
known to most if not all of us, and it is not quite over yet until Amos
Adamu’s case is decided in about a month and our football hopefully
stays scandal-free for a long while to come. After all is said and
done, it is time to move forward. I quote from Philippians 3:13-14
which urges us to “forget those things that are behind us, and reach
for the things ahead and press towards the mark”. This was more or less
Aminu Maigari’s plea upon resumption as FIFA approved NFF President.
Already, the NFF have impressively taken steps to immediately resolve
dire pending issues like the resumption of the Nigeria Premier League
and deciding who will be our National team coach or manager.

In light of
pressing toward the mark, it would be great if the NFF could clarify
what ‘the mark’ is, so that Nigerians can appraise their performance
during their 4-year tenure. However, I believe appointing the right
national team manager at this time is very crucial to our football
because of the team’s role to our national psyche.

The way forward

We are at another
threshold of our football development which is similar the position
Germany was in immediately after a woeful 2004 European Championship in
Portugal. Like us, the Germans didn’t win a single match and didn’t get
of the group and knew they needed to take drastic action. They did so
boldly by appointing Jurgen Klinnsman, a known advocate of attacking
football at the helm of football affairs. The first thing he did was to
attempt giving the national team an identity, an attack-minded identity
which entailed passing the ball on the ground from the back to the
front line as quickly as possible. That decision has paid off with two
World Cup semi-finals (2006 & 2010) and the final of Euro 2008. It
was not easy and Klinnsman and crew came close to being sacked but the
DFB (German Football Federation) were patient and focused on the long
term results based on their appraisal of results and progress reports.

Nigerian can
similarly recover from the poor showing in South Africa as quickly as
Germany did six years ago but we must do it our own football way. Every
nation has its own culture and specific environment as well as its own
footballing identity. The NFF has to develop (or rediscover) our own
vision and decide how we should play. Making that vision work is not an
easy process and may take time and our results might not be positive
while it takes effect. I know that is something the current board and
most Nigerians may not want to hear because we all want immediate and
continually good results. Something else that Klinnsman did was to
enlist the help of every Bundesliga coach through the DFB’s backing to
influence and imbibe the attacking playing style. I advocate the same
for Nigeria based on our history, strength, skills and physique.

The football federation is important

The NFF must also
help by putting a lot of pressure on all the Premier and second
division teams in the NPL to build real academy programmes to ensure
talented young players come through playing the same style. Workshops
should be held by the NFF with Nigerian coaches and players to intimate
them more on how we want to be playing, how the Nigerian public want to
see the national playing and how we want to be seen playing by the rest
of the world. This strategy should then be implemented at all levels by
coaches with the same like mind so that our national teams play the
same at all levels. Also importantly, existing senior players must buy
into the vision to make it work. Some foundations need to be laid to
form the basis for the manager’s appointment. The most pertinent are
that the NFF should

1. Appreciate that
our football is at threshold and they can decide to undertake a bold
revolution or try a conservative approach.

2. Be committed to
change 3. Demonstrate a full understanding of the significance of a
successful national team in decision making.

4. Define the kind of football that epitomises our skills, strengths and character to revive those heady days of 1994.

5. Leave coaching
to the manager and provide with the tools to succeed. This includes
excellent monetary motivation and perks to international standards.

Therefore the new coach must have the character, savvy, pedigree,
desire for attacking football and experience to implement the task and
take us out of the doldrums we currently reside in. Though the choice
does not have to be popular, it seems obvious to me. The man appears to
be Samson Siasia who has the right mix of these qualities never mind
his recent club management experience for which I think he has learnt
valuable lessons from and he will be a popular choice. We wait and see
in expectation of a significant positive change in Nigeria football.