South Africa On Our Minds

While reviewing the performance of the of the Super Eagles in their debut appearance at the FIFA World Cup® in 1994 the monthly football journal Complete Football predicted that Nigeria will make a habit of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup®, like traditional superpowers Brazil, Italy, Germany and even African power house Cameroun if we can build on that performance and also if we work on getting a few factors right.

This assertion was made based on the credible performance of the Eagles and mostly on the array of talent available to us at the time. Nigerians had just seen arguably their best team ever come within two minutes of eliminating Italy in the second round and qualifying for the quarter final.

Building on that performance the Eagles went on to qualify for the next two editions of the competition in France and in Korea/Japan, as well wining the Olympic football gold, the first by an African team.

Then in 2005, we failed to qualify for the 2006 world cup on Germany, in what many consider a blip in the expected dominance of the African qualifying competition by the Super Eagles. The reasons for that failure are numerous , not least the lack of commitment shown by the players, especially in honoring away matches and the alarming level of ineptitude displayed by the NFA in managing the qualifying competition.

So the question is, can we become consistent qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup® just as was predicted inn 1994? The answer of course is yes, but we have to start with next one to be held in South Africa and forget about previous successes and indeed failures in the qualifying campaign, which were mainly achieved by capitalising on kind draws into weak groups and also the a huge slice of luck in 2002 campaign when Liberia slipped up in the final hurdle. When such luck deserted us in 2006, the result was clear to all, failure to qualify.

So far in this campaign, we have shown that we have learned a lot from the 2006 campaign. The Eagles and NFF have performed their tasks diligently in wining all their matches as well as conceding just the single goal. While we have enjoyed some luck, scoring in the last minute to see off Sierra Leone in the Free Town, as well as wining in Johanesburg after being outplayed by South Africa, we have also been ruthless when they had the chance to be, dispatching Sierra Leone in Lagos 4-1 in a game that should have seen them win by a greater margin but for the referee’s decision to disallow two legitimate goals late on.

As the second round commences in March, 2009, the competition will no doubt become tougher especially as Nigeria has been drawn in the same group with Tunisia, who have a habit of knocking Nigeria out of the FIFA World Cup®, as well a history of qualifying for the three FIFA World Cup® competitions, mostly at the expense of the bookmakers choices for the ticket. They also have a knack for getting the job done against smaller teams in their group, while doing just enough against their main rivals to earn the ticket. What then do we need to do then to make sure that this doesn’t happen?

Do you know?

That Nigeria has lost out to Tunisia on two of the three occasions they have met in FIFA World Cup® qualifying competition. In 1977, Nigeria needed just a draw in Lagos in the penultimate match of the final group stage to qualify for the 1978 edition in Argentina, after holding them to a goalless draw in Tunis, but we lost 1-0 in what remains the last time we lost a competitive in regulation time at home (the other loss was on penalties to Cameroun in the Final of 2000 ANC). Godwin Odiye scored an own goal just five minutes into the match and there was no way back for Father Tiko’s Eagles.
In 1985, Nigeria also lost out to Tunisia, 2-1 on aggregate in the penultimate round of the 1986 qualifiers. Okey Isima scored in Lagos to give the Eagles coached by the late Christopher Udemezue a 1-0 lead going into the second leg, but goals by … and … ensured that Tunisia won 2-0 in Tunis in the return leg to end Nigeria’s ambitions.
The only time the Eagles have over come Tunisia was in first round of the 1982 qualifying campaign.The Eagles won on penalties in Lagos after both legs finished 2-0 to either side.

Nigerian Factor...Again

Over the years the fact the Nigerian nation constitutes of so many tribes and culture has been more of a curse rather than a blessing to our National development. This has resulted in the need to keep everybody happy in terms of appointments to jobs in the Federal government and to an extent in the state government level as well.

Otherwise known as the Federal character, it has come to be known as one of the many "Nigerian Factors", some of those things we just have live with.As a result we are made to live with a system where mediocrity is upheld as more qualified people have been over looked for jobs because their quota has been taken up in other positions. We do not just lose a chance to benefit from such talents and may end up losing them to the private sector or even to other countries, but of course end up with the worst available people for vital jobs.

Football like other sectors of our national life has suffered from this anomaly, especially in appointment of coaches for the national teams. In the last two months, Nigeria has performed poorly in different competitions for both men and women. These performances were all down to poor coaching.

In keeping with the federal character, the coaching job in Nigeria has been distributed across the political zones of Nigeria without putting their abilities into consideration. As such there is no room for respected and successful coaches as long as there quota is already taken up.

Take the women teams, when Effiom Ntiero, who has been the most successful coach in women football in Nigeria was sacked(for reasons still unclear to us), Jossy Lad, who if I recall correctly hasn't done anything significant in football since wining the league with Leventis Utd in 1986, was appointed, in order to make up for the lack of western representation. The result is that the Super Falcons failed to win the African women Championships for the first time since 1991, with the same group of players who won the championships so convincingly two years ago.

Again, after sacking Eaglets’ coach Alphonsus Dike was sacked, the NFF appointed Henry Nwosu, who has no history of working with young players, just to make sure that the Eastern quota doesn't end up in different political zone. Granted we have not really seen him work as yet, but if reports of his approach to the job so far are anything to go by, he has already taken the wrong steps (he is reported to be watching NPL league matches to scout for U-17 players!).

The fact remains that Nigerian football will not make any significant progress if we don't start making appointments ON MERIT.