Has Anybody Seen the Super Eagles?

...cus I haven't! Not recently at least.

Since I've been following football I have never seen the idiocy that is currently being perpetrated on hapless Nigerian football fans in the name of rebuilding the Super Eagles. Nowhere in the world has anybody summarily dismantled the core of a national team with the explanation that he wants to 'give others a chance'.

At the time Siasia was fired for failure to qualify for the Nations cup, a definitive team was starting to emerge in the Super Eagles. Joel and Mikel Obi were starting to form a credible partnership as a double pivot in central midfield in a 4-2-3-1 formation. But there were flaws; weaknesses that needed to be addressed, both in tactical organization of the team and personnel, especially in defence as I discussed here..

But in come Mr Keshi and Daniel Amokachi. Two men who cannot put together a proper tactical plan decide in their own wisdom to embark on a wholesale change in the Super Eagles. They say they are searching for hungry players; players who can 'hussle'. So in one fell swoop we do away with Taiwo, Ogude, Nsofor, Obasi, Emenike, Brown. We invite Raheem Lawal who could not make the U-23 team until its star players like Nosa Igiebor became unavailable, but leave Nosa at home!

We consider Taiye Taiwo not good enough but persist with Oshaniwa who has no clue what the role of a fullback is, and would give an arm to play at the level Taiwo currently does! And all the while the drumbeat of dichotomy between the foreign and homebased players is sounding ever louder. Something smells about this weird experimentation and it ain't sweet...

We consider Obaobona good enough at right back or a substitute center back and then play Ambrose Efe at right back. Yet we have Terna Suswan, one of the best fullbacks at the last WYC in Colombia, and who has broken into the team at Vitoria Setubal.

On the Chelsea forum. fans are clamouring for the return of Omeruo from his loan spell at ADO Den Haag in the Eredivisie, where he has been outstanding as a right back, including scoring two goals. Yet we consider Godfrey Oboabona good enough to start for the Super Eagles, while Omeruo sits at home.

We consider Azubuike Egwueke good enough to start in central defence, yet Onyekachi Apam who has made a solid return to first team football at Rennes is left to sit at home. Something smells about this endless rebuilding exercise and it ain't sweet...

Let there be no misunderstanding! As I have said before, I am in support of the strategy of building the Super Eagles from the domestic game. But it has to be based on using players who are competitive in the positions they play and who bring added value to the team. It cannot be based and should not be based as Mr Keshi has said on giving local players a chance (Source). The task of team building is not an affirmative action exercise nor is it an exercise in participatory democracy! It seems Mr Keshi is confusing his job as Super Eagles coach with that of the INEC chairman!

They say the foreign based players lack commitment. Yet Siasia's inability to qualify for the ANC had nothing to do with a lack of commitment on the part of his players. We seem to be diagnosing solutions to a non existent problem....

They say the homebased players are hungry and can hussle.

First, 'hussle' is not a tactic known to the game of football. The popular but misleading tendency is to confuse 'hussle' for 'pressing'. The 'hussle' is about individual players running after the football like headless chicken. Pressing on the other hand is the systematic movement of a group of players, often within defined zones, to reduce the time and space an opponent has on the ball.

The miserable performance of Keshi's Super Eagles against a pedestrian Namibian team is evidence of a clear and present danger. While it is quite possible that the team may grow from this victory, there is little evidence to suggest this beyond a hope and a prayer.

The evidence does not lie in the fact we dominated Namibia. That was always the expectation leading up to the match.

The evidence does not lie in the 4-2-4 formation that Keshi and Amokachi effectively employed against Namibia, or their laughable attempt to play a 'false 9' without understanding the lines of movement such a tactic recommends....

The evidence does not lie in the numerous 'chances' we missed. That's what happens when you get 50/50 or scrambled chances; the kind that results not from constructive team play but individualism or mistakes from the opponent. They are called half chances because they can go either way...

Something smells about this homebased rebuilding exercise; and it smells a lot like dead fish!

In the last decade, millions of hapless Super Eagles fans have endured the spectre of a national team consistently underachieving in the continent, supervised by ex-footballers who lack the personal commitment to rigorously apply themselves to  the work required to be a top coach, instead relying on their citizenship to get jobs for which they are highly underqualified for or unprepared.

Sadly the misery endures.....