The Super Eagles and indeed the entire football structure in Nigeria have been in crisis for quite awhile but we live in denial. This is symptomatic of the general situation of things in the country. We seem not to know how to manage ourselves.
The victory in the Africa Cup of Nations the last time was just a fluke, very few Nigerians truly believe the Super Eagles will excel in South Africa in 2013 but miraculously it did. Not with tactically superiority but with grit and pure luck. The Confederation Cup in Brazil exposed the deficiencies in the team , yet we did nothing to improve our play. At the world cup, we got to the second round but myriad questions arise about how poor we played compared to our African brothers- Ghana and Algeria.
For over 6 years, the best player in the Super Eagles has been our goal keeper, Vincent Enyeama. On several occasion Enyeama save our blushes with scintillating and unexpected saves. Without being too patronizing, Vincent Enyeama was instrumental to the few positives we are witnessing in the Super Eagles today. The failure to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea in January next year is an exposition on the failure of the system.
The neglect of the domestic league and the unending brouhaha in the football administration coupled with the government’s lack of policy direction for sports impacted negatively on football development in the country. Sport is totally politicized in Nigeria; a good example is the recent commissioning of the Akwa Ibom international stadium. I have never seen a stadium commissioning being turned into a political rally in any of the developed world. The Akwa Ibom event was a jamboree not for football but politicking. Are we just building stadium for building sake or just for Super Eagles? Or for the general development of sports in the country? Our definition of sports legacy is wrongly and totally misplaced. We build swimming pool where there is no swimmer, tennis court where there is no player and football stadium not necessarily for the development of the game but to massage ego.
We are so confident we will pummel the Bafana Bafana having achieved the impossible in Point Noire with 2 nil victory over the Congolese. The South Africans are doing everything humanly possible to build their football from the bottom up whereas we are doing the opposite. Just take an objective look at our football league, match fixing and intimidation reign supreme. The biggest bully is often crown champion. Team work, technical and tactical dexterity counted for zilch, all you need do is bribe and bulldoze your way to victory.
The government should stop funding sports. Rather, it should provide infrastructures, enabling environment and policy thrust to develop sports-football and all. Player selection to the national team should be open and competitive. A situation where serial bench warmers are preferred to others because they are on the books of Europe elite clubs should be discarded. We couldn’t defeat South Africa comprising of mainly home based players urgently calls for a rethink. Blaming the President for reinstating Keshi is begging the question, blaming coach Stephen Keshi’s selection is a red herring. The Super Eagles is not good enough because we simple don’t have good players.
I see Nigeria winning the world cup and I’m not joking but we need to start from the bottom up. All we need do is to adopt the best global practice of sports management and policy. And we have a lot of countries to learn from- Brazil, Japan, England, France, Germany, United States, China, Qatar, Argentina, South Africa and so many more.
It’s a shame we relinquished our title without a defence in Equatorial Guinea. Good luck to the qualified countries.
