The Challenge of Rebuilding the Super Eagles

Two games do not normally constitute enough body of work to assess the performance of a coach, and I will not attempt to do so with respect to Sunday Oliseh's tenure so far.

However, his much publicized selection policy is of interest to me, especially because of the vital role that this has played in the failures of successive Nigerian coaches of the Super Eagles.

The pool of players available to national team selectors in Nigeria can be divided into four broad categories.

The first pool of players comprises established national team players among whom are the following: Enyeama,  Ambrose, Omeruo, Oboabona, Uwa; Mikel Obi, Onazi; Emenike, Musa, Moses.

The challenge for national team selectors is the fact that apart from Enyeama who has played at a consistently high level, the rest of this group have had their careers either stagnate, become inconsistent or out-rightly decline.

The second pool comprises fringe players who have made periodic appearances in the national team. This comprises a long list of players some of whom are Ejide, Egwueke, Oshaniwa, Kwambe, Raheem Lawal, John Ogu, Aaron Samuel, Obiora Nwankwo, Gbolahan Salami, Rabiu Ibrahim, Michael Babatunde, etc.

The difficulty for national team selectors in assessing this group is the clear lack of consistency in the careers of many of these players, with several shuttling between the NPL and trials in Europe. Under Keshi, For example, under Stephen Keshi, Oshaniwa made his debut and remained a regular until his international transfer, after which he seemed to disappear, only to return and feature prominently at the world cup, following an injury to Echiejile. Others have shuttled between minor clubs in the low tier European leagues.

The biggest challenge for national team selectors especially resides within this group, with many of the Euro-based players having had nomadic careers, shuttling between minor leagues, and their homebased counterparts navigating successive failed trials in Europe. The result is that few from this group have had settled careers, and overall have contributed least to the national team, compared to other groups. 

In my considered opinion, any call-ups from this group will need to be made with the most careful consideration. An analysis of call-ups by Sunday Oliseh so far shows that invitees from this group includes, Lukman Haruna, Sylvester Igboun, Izunna Uzochukwu, Rabiu Ibrahim, Obiora Nwankwo and Solomon Kwambe. None of these players have put in anything resembling a quality performance.

What is more, under Stephen Keshi and Siasia before him, players from this group have equally performed poorly, especially under the former. Analyzing this group further, one can conclude with certainty that the stagnation that followed Keshi's performance post-ANC 2013 can be traced to his repeated call-ups and persistence with players from this group, even when their contributions did not warrant a recall. The highlight of this being the notorious case of Gabriel Okechukwu including the decision to go to the world cup with the likes of Michael Uchebo, Reuben Gabriel and Uche Nwofor. Indeed, ten of Nigeria's world cup squad was drawn from this group!

The third pool of players comprise some emerging talent from both the domestic as well as European leagues, comprising such players as Moses Simon, Leon Balogun, William-Troos Ekong, Ighalo, Ujah, Kingsley Madu, Prince Aggrey, Mohmmed Usman, etc.

The fourth and final pool of players comprise players from our youth teams, many of whom are yet to make their international debuts with the Super Eagles, as well as diaspora Nigerians (including those with Nigerian parentage). Among these are such talents as Kelechi Iheanacho, Taiwo Awoniyi, Genk center-back, Wilfred Ndidi, Michael Olaitan, Godswill Ekpolor, Kelvin Akpoguma, Kenneth Otigba, etc.

The challenge for Sunday Oliseh and national team selectors is to focus player call-ups on players whose growth curve is trending upwards, wherever they may be domiciled, regardless of what experience they may have or how young they may claim. 

Perhaps the greatest irony of Nigerian football is the fact that at any one time, the best players from the Nigerian domestic game can be found in any one of our youth teams. And when they perform brilliantly at this level, we delude ourselves into thinking they are too young for the senior team!

Take the case of Stanley Okoro, who at the time of his superstar status with the U-17 'Golden Eaglets' was a top scorer for Heartland in the CAF Champions league, ostensibly considered 'too young' for the Super Eagles even when his standard was at least at the top end of the African club championship! The result was that he would go from playing in the finals of the CAF champions league to the reserves at Spanish basement club Almeria, as an academy scholar! From Almeria he would be sent on a season long loan in 2013 to the anonymous Bulgarian team, Cherno More. Nothing more has been heard of him since then...

The moral of the above story is that the only victims of our approach to youth football is Nigeria. Many of the players we parade from the U-17 to the U-23 levels are some of the best players in the domestic game in their positions, including some of those strategically 'parked' at our local academies to facilitate their international transfers.

While the MRI test might analyze the bone density of our players and certify them eligible for the U-17 team, they will not, and cannot reveal the iniquities underlying an approach that wastes some of the best years of our most talented footballers, like Macauley Chrisantus, top scorer and Silver Boot winner at the  2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Korea, a veteran of European basement league football at 25, having migrated from Hamburger SV to Hamburger SV II, Karlsruher SC, FSV Frankfurt, Las Palmas, Sivasspor and AEK Athens!

In the very short period of Sunday Oliseh's tenure, there are some encouraging signs from his selection policy and decisions, specifically his decision to set standards and his decisiveness in holding Lukman Haruna accountable for his disastrous performance in Tanzania. However, aspects of his selection decisions so far point unequivocally in the direction of the locust years of Stephen Keshi.

From the foregoing analysis, it seems crystal clear to me that to succeed, Sunday Oliseh must draw the majority of his national team call-ups from a viable core of established players in combination with high performers from the third and fourth selection pools outlined above. 

More importantly, it is vital that irrespective of the group a player is drawn from, that subsequent call-ups be made to reflect performance and accountability, not wishful thinking or worse, the desire to facilitate the international transfer of players.

Protecting the African Child, Patrice Sousia: Whose Interest FIFA?

I wrote a piece on FIFA's sanction of Barcelona's La Masia about a year and half ago, titled In the Best Interest of the African Child

In the piece I had wondered how much of the interests of the African child the rules on the international transfer of minors, FIFA's regulation actually protects:

It appears presumptuous and arrogant and puts FIFA in the unlikely position where it assumes to know better than Bukola Mosunmola and Ademola Adekanye, what is in the best interest of  their son Bobby Adekanye.
More importantly, it is ineffective because it doesn't address the two major mechanisms through which African minors are exploited in the transfer market, fraudulent agency representation and slave contracts, both of which continue, irrespective of the age of the player!
With specific reference to Barcelona, it is  rather ironic that a law that is designed to prevent the exploitation of minors, is punishing a team, whose facilities and conditions of work, as well as the management of young players is probably of the highest standard in the world.

But even I, skeptical as I was could never have foretold what would become of one of the young players, Patrice Sousia of Cameroon, who has suddenly found himself on the streets, homeless! This, as a result of FIFA's sanction, in not only preventing him from playing for Barcelona, in both friendlies and competitive games, but also in training, and wait for it, living at La Masia!

The result of the eviction was that Patrice Sousia suddenly found himself homeless and had to be rescued by the parents of one of his teammates.

So I ask again, whose interest is FIFA protecting in this sorry saga, because it sure as hell is not Patrice Sousia's?

Oliseh: Positive Early Signs, But Much Work Remains...

Sunny Oliseh begins his tenure as coach of the Super Eagles with a road draw against Tanzania, in a game in which the hosts had enough chances to feel disappointed with a point. Overall the Nigerian performance and team game was tepid and disappointing. The game by itself is culmination of the early first steps of Oliseh, and there are enough pointers from the overall performance to the extent of work that is required to rebuild the team to a competitive force on the global stage.

For all his commendable achievement in wining the Africa Nations Cup, Stephen Keshi's failure to build on this major achievement, left his successor with a team in far worse shape than he met it...

2. In my humble opinion, the failures of Nigerian coaches in the national team has often stemmed from poor management, especially with the failure to hold players accountable. It is in this regard that I was very enthused by Oliseh's selection policy, and I would encourage him to stick to it, making exceptions of course, but most appropriately.

3. Nigeria is a team that is at the moment lacking any truly world class outfield players. But what the country has is a cadre of young emerging professionals who, with thoughtful selection and creative tactics, can be a very effective team, with the qualities to be devastating on the counter.

4. Therefore for Oliseh to succeed, he must be willing to challenge existing order. Readers of this blog will recall my call to Siasia at the beginning of his tenure to make wholesale changes to rebuild the team, rather than cosmetic changes.

5. As I had urged Siasia back then, I would like to similarly urge Oliseh to continue to challenge established order, by holding players accountable. A critical part of this revolves around the role of Mikel Obi who was absent from this game. In my opinion, Oliseh must creatively challenge Mikel to live up to his talent and responsibilities to the team both through personal intervention and by developing viable competition for places in the team.

6. Getting back to the game, the critical technical issue behind the team's performance for me was in the structure of the midfield, featuring a double pivot of Obiorah and Izunna, a player I have consistently advocated for in the past.

7. It took the first Tanzanian attack to expose the deficiency in the Nigerian structure, with the Super Eagles consistently facing a 3v2 in central midfield, with Haruna exhibiting all of the worst traits associated with him since he first broke through at Monaco more than a decade ago. Oliseh must be commended for his swift decision in replacing him. 

But the lack of balance in the Nigerian midfield is by itself a reflection of the failures of Nigerian coaches, dating back to the locust years of Christian Chukwu.

8. Nigerian coaches must learn to evolve with their players. Ahmed Musa for all intents and purposes is no longer a winger but a forward, playing either wide or centrally, off the shoulder of the last defender

9. In the double pivot, the positioning of both Izunna and Obiorah was consistently too close, with both players naturally drifting to the same position, a reflection of their predominant roles as anchor in their various teams. In effect, Oliseh selected two similar players without sufficiently resolving the positional issues which was bound to emerge.

10. In my opinion, the Nigerian game at the Mkapa Stadium might have been better served with a switch to a 4-3-3, with two box-to-box players either side of Obiorah, a role the more versatile Izunna could've fulfilled. Instead, the imbalance in midfield was further reinforced by the introduction of Sylvester Igboun, a striker from his years at Danish club, Midjtylland.

11. Going forward, Oliseh must aggressively look for new, viable players in midfield, defence and attack. But this must signal the end of Haruna's international career! Anything less would directly question Oliseh's commitment to holding players accountable. In defence, the search for a genuine right back must continue, as well as commanding centerbacks.

12. The back to back games against Egypt will be decisive. With the expected return of Mikel and Onazi, some control and balance should return to central midfield. But a creative player at the top end of the midfield triangle is still lacking, which again suggests to me that a reconsideration of shape is necessary.

13. The clamor for new players especially Odion Ighalo will expectedly grow. I remain unconvinced by the player. In my opinion, he needs to be given the space to fully establish his game in the premiership. Although the European season is in its early stages, I think that Grenada's Isaac Success is at the moment better established to be given a look.