In the Case of Sidney Sam et al.....

Sidney Sam is a product of the revolution of German youth football, which has seen the emergence of a conveyor belt of top quality talent.

Many of these players are 2nd generation Germans. Following the success of Mesut Ozil and the national team at the world cup, the Turkish federation has recently moved aggressively to court those of them of turkish decent. In response the german federation have had to be super alert and are tying these players to the national team as early as possible.

The reality is that for players like Sidney Sam, the first loyalty and option is their 'home' countries, often in contrast to their parents'. This is the stark reality for diaspora Nigerians, and a major factor in influencing how we approach their recruitment. And for those who wonder why we should bother, and that we should not be in the business of 'begging' anyone to wear the national team colors, I respectfully state that that is not really the issue. Indeed, no player should ever be begged to play for Nigeria.

However, as long as the Nigerian constitution allows for dual citizenship, they remain valid options for national team selectors. Neither should or does their invitation preclude the invitation of any eligible local players.

For Sidney Sam though, the challenge he has is that in the German national team pecking order, he has quite a few top quality options in front of him in that left midfield role which he favors, with Lukas Podolski as the established player. Behind Podolski there is Marko Marin who is a top talent and Marcell Jansen and Dennis Aogo who play in both left back and left midfield.

Then there are a couple of new options who have emerged from the superb season that Dortmund and Mainz are having in the Bundesliga. These include, André Schürrle who recently made his debut in a friendly against Sweden, and Mario Götze. And then there is Marco Reus of Borussia Mönchengladbach. Each of these players have already made their national team debuts or been invited. This is not the case, as yet, with Sidney Sam, which may well be a major factor in recruiting him for Nigeria.

In the case of Sidney Sam and any other diaspora Nigerian footballer, the challenge for the NFF and Siasia is to layout their vision of an international career with the Super Eagles and the place of the player in it, and then let the chips fall where they may...

The 4-3-3 Formation as an Option for the Super Eagles

Football always tells you the truth. And in the advent of modern performance evaluation tools such as the Castrol Index or OPTA statistics, there is little hiding place for the underperforming footballer.

But even without the benefits of such performance evaluation tools, manual techniques will indicate that in Nigeria’s last competitive game, the best moments for a poor Ethiopian team came in the first half. This was especially evident in their pass completion ratio and ball possession.

While normalcy was restored in the 2^nd half with the introduction of Osaze Odenwigie, the point from this was quite clear: the Nigerian Super Eagles retains a structural imbalance in midfield, which while only partially exposed by Ethiopia, will be more ruthlessly exploited by a decent opposition.

While the emergence of Joel Obi has gone a considerable way in restoring balance in central midfield, the major structural problem remains the role of the ‘wide forwards’. In the first half against Ethiopia, the interpretation of the role of the wide forward by Nsofor and Ahmed Musa, resulted in Nigeria being repeatedly outnumbered in central midfield.

Until the emergence of Ahmed Musa, Nigeria’s wide forwards, including those at the World cup were variously, Obinna Nsofor, Osaze Odenwigie, Chinedu Obasi and Kalu Uche.

The performance of these wide forwards and their contribution to the Nigerian midfield is best exemplified by the Castrol statistics from the last World cup, for distance covered (DC) and by the Pass Attempt/Pass Completion (PA/PC) ratio. The best performance by each player is as follows:

Nsofor:            5686m;            18/12

Obasi:             10341m;          46/33

Kalu:               9561m;            40/29

Osaze:             5075m;            18/31

Compare this to some of the top wide forwards at the world cup:

Podolski:         10336m;          52/27

Iniesta:            10710m;          81/56

Ayew:             10227m;          44/34

Pedro:             10259m;          71/55

It should be noted though that Osaze’s figures come from 45mins of football. But even then, these are appalling statistics. As I indicated earlier, in fifteen minutes of football as a substitute, the Spanish wide forward Pedro completed more passes than Osaze made in the opening game against Argentina!

These performance statistics are however not simply reflective of poor work rate, but deficiencies in the structure of the team in wide areas, the role definition of the wide forwards, and the lack of tactical discipline. What is more, the spacing of the players, especially under Shaibu Amodu was quite simply shambolic, with ‘free spirited’ players, operating on instincts rather than a prepared script.

But it also comes from the very nature of Nigerian players and their spontaneity as well as their predominant attacking instincts.

New 4-3-3 Formation:

In my opinion, one solution could be to restructure the team in a new variant of the 4-3-3 formation, with three young and dynamic central midfielders. A trio of technically skilled central midfielders should create the platform for the wide forwards to function more effectively, on either side of a lone striker, as well as provide a pool of late runners from midfield to support the lone forward, especially in transition.

The ‘False’ Lone Striker:

In this regard, I would suggest the restoration of Osaze at the tip of the formation (as was the case at the Beijing Olympics), as a ‘false’ lone striker.

Never been prolific, Osaze’s aggressiveness and constant movement either in working the channels or running at defenders enables him function very effectively as the modern day striker/facilitator, bringing others into play, as we see increasingly in his game at West Brom, as well as getting in among the goals.

In my opinion, the key to maximizing Osaze’s abilities revolves around space and freedom. Able to play with back to goal, hold the ball up top or play from the flanks, his qualities will enable the repositioning of the wide forwards a little further behind, between the midfield trio and the lone striker, as shown below, thus further strengthening the midfield and defence in wide areas.

Merits:

The 4-3-3 formation is by its nature an aggressive formation. In this case, it can provide a framework for more effective use of the speed and power of our players, while at the same time providing a cover of three in central midfield at any one time.

Constraints:

The one constraint here would be the backline and its limitations on pace, especially in central defence, as the 4-3-3 by its nature would require playing a relatively high line in defence. At the same time, it could be a way to challenge the coaching crew to step up efforts at recruitment and trial of multiple new options at center back and at right back.

 As noted elsewhere, t
he key problem of the Nigerian midfield up until the world cup was the lack of balance in personnel, with a predominance of defensive, one paced and technically limited players. But the reality is that there are multiple new options in the smaller leagues of Europe, as well as in the local league.

The match of the day in Week 3 of the Norwegian Tippeligaen featured Lillestrom in a 4-4 tie away to Rosenborg, with Nosa Igiebor outstanding in a left midfield role. I would urge Siasia and his crew not to feel shy about exploring him and other such players, in the age grade teams as an option in a three man midfield.

The friendly against Argentina should be a good platform for some experimentation, as well as a good barometer for evaluating the current strength of the team and how much more work is required.