Samson Siasia: Management by Conflict?

...or simply a case of relentless ambition to succeed by a young coach looking to make his bones in the profession?

Even before he took over as Super Eagles coach, Siasia was reported to have clashed with Osaze and Anichebe at the Beijing Olympics and needed the intervention of the NFF to smoothen things over. And since becoming Super Eagles coach, there have been well publicized spats with Osaze, Etuhu and recently Vincent Enyeama.

A common trend in most of these conflicts is that they revolve around attempts by players to challenge the authority of the coach.

I have always been of the opinion that African players who are based in Europe typically leave their professionalism behind on their retrun journeys for national team assignments. Many of these players act out in manners that they would never dream of in their clubs. In some cases understandably so, it has to be said, as African FAs are notorious for poor management and total diregard for player welfare.

In the specific case of Siasia, my opinion is that these conflicts were always to be expected. The setup in the Nigerian team prior to his arrival required any serious coach with a semblance of professionalism and personal ambition to challenge an existing order that is based on the "golden bronze" mentality, where repeated 3rd place finishes or mere qualification for the world cup is seen as an achievement.

Indeed we have seen similar situations with Mancini repeatedly clashing with players (Adebaor, Bellamy, Tevez)  as he attempts to change the existing order at Manchester City. A similar situation is equally unfolding at Stamford Bridge as Andre Villas Boas attempts to change a long existing order at Chelsea, with Frank Lampard, a senior player venting his frustration recently.

However, no less a person as Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, has recently come out expressing his support for Mancini. "I think that Roberto Mancini has come out and shown his strength of character, his strength of management and I think that is important," said Ferguson. "We have all experienced our own difficulties in management and you cope with it as best as you can. In my own experience strong management is important and there is nobody more important than the manager at a football club." (Link) It is interesting that Ferguson did not question Mancini's man management, nor did he ask him to thread carefully for fear that his Board would abandon him.

The reality is that for too long, too many players have become too comfortable in their sense of indispensability, with every regard for self and too little for the team. The result as we saw especially under Amodu was a team with little regard for tactical organization or discipline, to the extent that it appeared sometimes that every outfield player had a free role! 'Big man football' had not only taken root, it was flourishing!

Against this background, any coach who sought to hold players accountable was bound to ruffle feathers in the Super Eagles. Especially if such a coach is not foreign! Much as I hate to say it, foreign coaches in Nigeria and many African countries, command much more respect, off and on the pitch than their local counterparts, from both players and officials. The reasons behind this are too long to go into here...

Respect they say is reciprocal. In football coaching especially, respect is earned or instituted. It is earned from superior knowledge or method of doing things, whether technical or simply management. Under such circumstance every new coach is typically tested by his players. For such a coach, the challenge is whether he has the convinction of his ideas to remain firm, yet fair in his dealings with players and to earn their trust rather than seek to force it. In this regard their is no one way and no approach is infallible.

The reality is that what we have in Samson Siasia is a young coach who is seeking to build a successful career as a top manager in the modern game in a country where there are no models to serve as a guiding light in the horizon. In this specific respect, Siasia is somewhat of a pioneer. Accordingly he will make his mistakes, and he will have to learn and grow from them. He will learn that things are never black or white, but the shades in between...That sometimes (not always) keeping things 'in-house' gives you the flexibility to manage conflicts without the parties adopting hardened positions or leaving collateral damage.

The challenge before all of us as fans and adminstrators is to recognize this reality. And having recognized it, the choice before us is to support and uplift Siasia with valid criticisms, so as to enable the emergence of a new cadre of professional local coaches, weaned in the culture of Nigerian football as players, and equipped with the professional knowledge and maturity that European experience offers.

The alternative is a return the status quo and the 'golden bronze' or worse still the nomadic european coach appointed on the eve of a major tournament.

Super Eagles: Lessons from Dhaka

1. This was always going to be a difficult match, not just because of the Super Eagles schedule in September or the high humidity of Dhaka, but for the simple fact that Argentina is on a higher level than Nigeria, at least at the moment.

2. Argentina's football may not be up there yet, but they can readily boast of not only having the best player in the world, but a plethora of world class players in multiple positions.

3. For this and a few other reasons, for me, the performance of the Super Eagles was always going to be more important than the result. In a game of two halves, the kindest thing that can be said of the team is that they lost the first half, woefully, and were forced to a tie in the second!

4. Irrespective of the absences of key players, and the physical condition of those who had played in the atrocious conditions of MADagascar, the basic organization of the team in the first half was beyond poor, with spacing between players inconsistent and hapharzard, and the tracking of opposition movement non-existent.

5. The familiar sight of a Nigerian team blissfully unaware of its responsibilities in the non-possession phase resurfaced, with Argentina repeatedly able to create a mismatch in numbers in midfield.

6. Even on the limited occassion of ball possession, the lack of movement and/or transition, ensured the team could hardly keep the ball.

7. With hapharzard organization, a defensive system that required the use of numbers to collapse around Messi in his 'trequartista' position and deny him room to build a head steam in his attacking forays, ended up merely providing an escort service!

8. The 'trequartista' position in front of the Nigerian defence thus became as open as the savanna plains in the Nigerian middlebelt, with all and sundry invited to freely forage!

9. With the defence playing square and the team unable to execute a high pressing game (understandable given the physical conditions), deep runners from midfield were repeatedly left unchallenged.

10. What is more, the two centerbacks somehow conspired to repeatedly allow an 'expressway' between them, which Higuain was more than happy to oblidge.

11. At left-back, woe was Echiejile, with everything elderly about his movement and positioning.

12. Upfront in attack, Ideye Brown had the unenviable task of the lone striker where the supply lines had drield out. Commendable as his effort was, Brown revealed himself as not our best option for a striker playing with back to goal.

13. When a team is struggling as we were in the first half, it behoves on the top striker to cleverly find positions from where to recieve the out ball, and the technical skills to retain it, so that the second phase of the build-up can begin. As I described here (Link), these are not Ideye's main strengths, which are evident when he is able to recieve the through ball in space, and recently especially wide left, from where to attack diagonally.

14. Second half adjustments by Siasia, including pushing up towards the ball in midfield, the overall team performance clearly revealed the potential of this team and how far Siasia's project can go if properly nutured.

15. It may be argued (with scant justification) that Argentina had pulled back in the second half, but it is without doubt the reshaping of the team in the non-possession phase that enabled it drastically reduce the influence of Messi, as well as improve in its passing game and share of possession.

16. The real value of games like this is that they enable you test yourself against the best, determine how far you have come and the length of the journey still to be travelled. Dhaka presented some very important lessons for the Super Eagles rebuilding project.

17. In defence, there were signs in the game that Efe Ambrose is starting to make the step up to international football. The real value of a centerback is in his ability to read the game and position himself accordingly. While Dele Adeleye remains for me the best physically equipped option in central defence, he remains incapable of reading opposition movement, relying almost entirely on his athleticism.

18. Samson Siasia is reported to have doubted the availability of better options in defence outside the squad, and signalled his readiness to invite any superior defender not presently in the team (Link). In that case let me remind him of the Torino FC captain and left-centerback, Angelo Ogbonna whom I had discussed here earlier (Link). He recently got invited to the Azurri even while playing in Serie B, but is still available as an option to be explored.

19. At right-back, Chibuzor Okonkwo needs to be commended for his tireless effort and then relegated to learn from the bench. His two-footed lunge was worthy of a red card! While I understand Siasia's position with respect to the Man City defender Nedum Onuoha, I believe it is time to revisit his involvement with the team. A senior player like Kanu Nwankwo can be very useful in this regard.