By Sunday Agunbiade
The announcement of Coach Gernet Rohr in the year 2016 as the Technical Adviser of Nigerian Super Eagles was welcomed by all and sundry with most sports loving Nigerians expecting the Franco German to bring European touch to the Nigerian Super Eagles particularly at the World stage.Still rhything in a mindset that Nigeria are trailing Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana in Mundia, the expectations were extremely high to change the tide for the populace.
Sincerely, Rohr had a good jolly ride en route to Mundia with unbeaten record in a group that had Cameroon, Algeria and Zambia even though the results were achieved within two to three days assemblage of mostly foreign players.
Kudos should be given to the NFF who made every provision available for a successful camping for the team in Austria. But, disappointingly ,the build up matches to the Mundia against Congo, England, Czech Republic and Serbia after a month camping could not justify the money spinning camping. It's no longer a news that the friendly matches were too horrible for the blind to see. You could imagine the Eagles under Rohr lacked cohesion, transition, understanding and no clear pattern from one match to another which obviously translated into the real terrible showing at the global stage.
Well, I think Coach Gernot Rohr should have a rethink on his over dependence on foreign based players. The poor football display couple with the below par result we had in Russia under his tutelage has caused many people to lose confidence in his style of coaching than the indigenous coaches. In record, Nigeria has never made any impact depending on foreign based players in any competition.
Let's go down the memory lane, Coach Westernhof looked inward in 1989 and built our home based players along with their foreign counterparts to stardom in Tunisia and USA '94. In fact, we all enjoyed great football artistry in this era under Westernhof
Not only that, Coach Stephen Keshi of blessed memory used home based players to fight Jerseys with the over hyped foreign based players in 2013 and won Nation's Cup in South Africa. We didn't only win AFCON but we also entered second round in Brazil 2014 World Cup losing narrowly on a disallowed goal against France. (we all knew the goal was clean and would have qualified us to the quarter finals in Mundia)
Frankly speaking, any coach who cannot go down to NPFL venues to genuinely pick three to four players and nurture them to stardom would be regarded as lazy and does not have any business in Nigeria not even in Africa as a whole.
Coach, I think if after two years, you cannot lay hands on two to three home based players you discovered and build to the World stage, you would be a disservice to the nation. (even Coach Onigbinde discovered Eyeama within three months, Haba)
Results are there in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegalese national teams with their home based players shocking the world.
Presently, our leagues are on break and I think you still have enough time to do the needful when the League resumes on September 2nd for genuine scouting. If I may ask, in your assessment, do you want us to tell Mallam Shehu Dikko to scrap NPFL and NNL if you think our league does not worth celebrating for national team call?
#15M monthly salary is enough to bring smiles into the faces of over 180 million Nigerians and until you justify your pay, we will not keep quiet. Remember that we are not paying you to bring sorrow or sorry to the populace.
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