Cote d’Ivoire 2023 is over. Nigeria’s Super Eagles lost the final match to the host of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, Cote d’Ivoire. But there are still more battles ahead. The quest for the 2026 FIFA World Cup as well as the qualification for the next edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco next year are the two crucial assignments at hand.
Are we still grieving over AFCON or celebrating a pyrrhic victory of coming second for a “record” equalling fifth time?
“To be Number One” is the title of the English version of the theme song for the Italia ‘90 FIFA World Cup. The essence of this emphasises the zeal to win and win again.
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After the initial euphoria, the feat of the runners-up fades and it is the winner that is eternally remembered. Other teams in even worse situations have moved on and are planning on the next battles. Egypt have dispensed with their Portuguese coach and immediately announced a replacement.
Morocco evaluated their performance and insisted on their coach to carry on. Algeria, Ghana, Mali are some other football powers that failed and had since addressed the coaching issues.
In Nigeria, the fate of the coach is left to public speculation, even if the extended contract of Jose Peseiro has lapsed. The Portuguese has confirmed opening negotiations for better conditions in Algeria.
Mum is the only action that the Nigeria Football Federation has taken. Possibly for lack of ambition, the NFF gave qualification for AFCON semi-finals as the target for renewal of a long-expired contract. An ordinary check reveals that in 19 previous editions, Nigeria had been to the semi-finals 15 times.
The Federation appears to have delimited our ambitions. Even at that, should the Portuguese coach continue? Certainly not. Discussing possible shift of allegiance to Algeria has indicated lack of commitment to Nigeria.
Now that his contract with Nigeria has lapsed, let him go in peace! Save for the outstanding salaries he is being owed, the country has no penalty to pay for rejecting Peseiro.
His outstanding rolls into thousands of dollars and subsequently millions of naira. That huge debt is not commensurable with what the Super Eagles have turned to.
A hitherto lively attacking outfit has become a laborious ultra defensive side. In the 23 matches under the Portuguese, Nigeria only managed three matches with more than one goal win. These are the two “novelty” matches with Sao Tome & Principe and the 2-0 defeat of Cameroon.
Yet, the Nigerian team is brimming with globally acclaimed strikers: Victor Osimhen, Ademola Lookman, Paul Onuachu, Simon Moses and Samuel Chukwueze to mention just a few.
Peseiro lacked the mixing skill to come up with a combination that should have created a lethal strike force. Osimhen, a hitherto clinical finisher, was made to be struggling for the ball and even had to go deep into the midfield and sometimes to the wings to struggle for the ball. Thus, more often than not, when crosses are made into the central attacking position, there are no strikers to finish up.
Peseiro’s match reading ability is suspicious. Even a lesser technically minded observer would have noticed that Cote d’Ivoire from the Round of 16 were comeback kings. You don’t score a goal against them and sit back. That was what happened again in the AFCON final match.
What propelled the Super Eagles to the final was not the technical ability of the coach. Rather, it was the grim determination of the players to make the best out of a bad situation and to also obliterate the sagging image the public had about them following the poor start in the World Cup qualifiers.
No doubt, Peseiro has reached his best. He had the strikers that are globally acclaimed. He could not make the best of them. No doubt, materials have reached saturation point. No amount of new input and suggestions can improve him. He is thus a huge drain of Nigeria’s scarce resources.
With less than 10 matches, at best, annually for the Super Eagles, paying as much as even the so-called reduction to $50,000 monthly to a coach who spends most of his time abroad is a colossal waste of Nigeria’s scarce resources. Like his predecessor, he stays abroad, hunting for players of Nigerian parentage to lure into the national team, thus doing nothing to improve the game at home.
God bless the likes of Father Tiko and Clemens Westerhof who traversed the various league venues in Nigeria and scouted for talents like Daniel Amokachi, Finidi George, Samson Siasia and Austin Jay Jay Okocha, polished them up and aided their professional career abroad. They thus set up a huge reservoir of football talents for the national team. Enough of the gold diggers who masquerade as foreign coaches depleting our foreign reserve.
Thus, the new manager of the Super Eagles has to stay at home and discover talents to be polished up. That way, he helps to develop Nigerian football. The coaches here must be encouraged to go abroad for refresher courses.
Football development should not be limited to the Super Eagles winning matches. Nigeria should be seen as brimming with talents both at home and abroad.
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