The Folly,before disaster

To say that Nigerians are an excitable people my be the understatement of the century,more so when it comes to football. This is the major reason why we have current Amodu vs Siasia debate.

After leading the Olympic Eagles to a silver medal finish at Beijing, a lot of people have called for Siasia to take over as the Super Eagles' coach, or as most people put it, to be "drafted" to the Super Eagles and more ridiculously, for for the Olympic team to replace the current Super Eagles team.

As the debate rages on,some people have come up with a compromise,which to have them form a joint coaching team.This was first suggested by former Eagles' winger Segun Odegbami in his column for sports journal Complete sports. This suggestion has also being picked up former coach Paul Hamilton.

In the present age of video games(football manager,premier league manager etc) and fantasy league, we all have day dreams and fantasies of what the national team set up should look like.Sometimes we convince ourselves that these concoction can become realities and if we are in a position to influence things, we can take steps to making it so.

There is no doubting Odegbami and Hamilton's credibility and achievements in football, but with all due respect, I think the suggestion is rubbish.It is nothing but a theory, that can only work on paper.

There are loads of reason's why this will not work. First, the personality of the people involved are too similar. In spite of his "nice guy" demeanor and his apparent willingness to bend to authorities, Shuabu Amodu, like Samson Siasia has a very strong personality who likes to be on top of things.The only difference is that Amodu being older and more experienced in dealing with the NFF has devised subtle ways of getting things done.

He can also be temperamental, just like Siasia showed with his criticism of the Olympic team even after the beat the USA in their last group game in China.It was him who famously(or infamously, depending on how you see it) ,suggested that we employ a foreigner as sports minister when the then minister suggested we hire a foreign coach to replace him.

Again both coaches have different ideas as to how to approach the game.While Siasia is more cautious and likes to have players play exactly to his instructions, while Amodu gives free reign to his players to improvise.

Ultimately the success of Olympic team was due to it a solid defence helped by Siasia deploying two holding midfielders, while Amodu so far has played with one holding midfielder, thus giving the team a more attacking outlook.

Historically, joint management have never been a success.The most famous of these was the appointment of Roy Evans and Gerrard Houllier at Liverpool in the 1998-99 season.
The partnership ended in disaster with Evans resigning a mere four months into their tenure.

Finally, Mr Siasia has stated in several interviews that he has no intention of working under(or with) Mr Amodu. Ultimately if the NFF acts upon these suggestions ,by "well meaning" Nigerians and Siasia declines, there is a chance he will be labeled unpatriotic.Thereby undoing all the good work he has done in the eyes of feeble Nigerian fans.

I do hope the NFF is not so naive as to fall for these follies, as it can only lead to disaster for Nigeria on the road to South Africa 2010. Amodu has done well,in fact better than most expected.It will only be logical to allow him to do his job and if he along the line he decides that Mr Siasia's services will be useful towards acheieving his goals, then he can request for them. It's no use use flogging a dead horse.

Short and simple!