EDITORIAL: The type of coach that Super Eagles really needs

To the chagrin of many football-loving Nigerians, a former Malian national team coach, Eric Chelle, has assumed duty as the coach of the Super Eagles. He replaced Austin Eguaveon, who held the fort in the wake of Finidi George’s sudden resignation in June 2024. Eyebrows raised at the 9 January appointment are not out of sync with his uninspiring coaching pedigree.

From available records, Chelle’s best credential was taking the Malian national team to the 2023 AFCON tournament in Cote D’Ivoire, where it lost 2-1 in the quarter finals to the host nation. The Malian Football Federation sacked him after a Group 1 World Cup qualifier game with Madagascar that ended in a goalless draw in June. Besides coaching a string of second division French club sides, he was in the dugout of Mouloudia Club of Oran, Algeria, from where the Ibrahim Gusau-led Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) head-hunted him.

Against this backdrop, only Gusau and his NFF board members can really justify his choice. Evidently, he doesn’t come across to PREMIUM TIMES as the right pick for the job. However, having been signed on, the best in the circumstance is for his employers to provide him with all that he needs to deliver, the most urgent being qualifying the Super Eagles for the 2026 World Cup to hold in Canada, US and Mexico.

This is not an enviable task at all in view of the fact that the team is on the precipice in its Group C six nations’ performance ranking. Nigeria has secured only three points from four matches to place fifth, while Rwanda, South Africa and Benin Republic, which have also played an equal number of matches, have seven points each. Lesotho has garnered five points and Zimbabwe is at the rear with two points.

The crucial matches with Rwanda and Zimbabwe in March will provide the first litmus test for the new coach. An ex-international, Victor Ikpeba, is of the view that, “if we win the two matches in March, we will be back in contention for the world cup (ticket).” He, therefore, urged all to rally round Chelle and the players. It could be so if the three nations ahead of us in the group falter in their two games.

It would be an embarrassment of unimaginable proportions if the country fails to qualify, considering the fact that it could not also make it to the 2022 Mundial.

It exasperates that Nigeria is gasping for breath in the qualification series, given the football pedigrees of nations in its group. This speaks to the incompetence of football administration in the country. Why it took the NFF six months to make this questionable appointment beggars belief. The evidence was clear that disaster was lurking with Nigeria’s shaky group’s table standing.

While the short-term goal given to Chelle is not ignorable, it is not necessarily our biggest. Our ideal Super Eagles coach is someone who has all it takes to radically overhaul the team: inject discipline, watch local league matches for new talents and nurture them; renew hope and self-belief in the players to actualise their full potential; and get the best out of our big players in Europe – Ademola Lookman, Victor Osimhen, Moses Simon, Samuel Chukwueze and others, who sometimes, find it difficult to replicate their rich performances at their clubs in international matches.

A photo of Super Eagles training used to illustrate the story

A coach determined to succeed should be firm and not succumb to the imposition of unfit players on him by vested interests for merchandising reasons. These imperatives take time and resources to accomplish even for the best of coaches.

Trouble for Nigeria’s world cup qualification started with Jesse Peseiro’s resignation after the 2023 AFCON finals in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, which it lost, without immediate steps taken to replace him. Finidi, who was his assistant, was drafted in, in an acting capacity.

When he finally got the job, after jostling for it along with Emmanuel Amuneke, Daniel Amokachi was designated as his Assistant, but he rebuffed the offer without reasons given. Therefore, Finidi’s needed support was lacking and the consequences were quite telling: Nigeria 1-South Africa 1; and Benin 2-Nigeria 1 in the qualifiers that Finidi managed. Two friendly matches against Ghana and South Africa ended in a victory and defeat. Thus, he became the most short-lived Super Eagles coach.

A German coach, Bruno Labbadia, appointed to succeed him did not show up. Perhaps, the NFF could not meet up with his conditions. These recent runs of rough patches open the gate to the past of NFF’s mismanagement and ruination of Super Eagles, which was once a global bride in World Cup tournaments.

Some critics have wondered why Eguavoen, who qualified the team for the next AFCON competition, was not given the chance ahead of Chelle. Such people may have a point, but Eguavoen had substantively been the manager before. The coaching terrain is so slippery that Dan Anyiam, Eto Amaechina, Chris Udemezue, Patrick Ekeji, Paul Hamilton, Festus Onigbinde, Christian Chukwu, Shuabu Amodu, Stephen Keshi and Samson Siasia who had trodden it too, had varying tales to tell.

Super eagles with the AFCON cup [PHOTO CREDIT: Real African Diary]

Nigeria’s national team football undeniably is the most potent symbol of national identity that is a bulwark against our ethnic, regional and sectarian divides. Being a critical tool in nation-building then, it should not be trifled with by those who administer it. Whether indigenous or foreign, coaches have always had problems in terms of owed salaries and allowances, coupled with the tardiness in getting the team prepared for competitions, which inexorably kill their morale and affect outputs.

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Among the foreign coaches, Clemens Westerhof, arguably, towered above all, as his time was the heyday of Super Eagles football. The team so mesmerised the world at USA ‘94 World Cup that FIFA ranked it as the fifth global best. Before then, Westerhof had led the Super Eagles to win the African cup of nations’ soccer diadem in Zambia, the same year. Otto Gloria had blazed the trail on home soil in 1980; and Keshi joined this pantheon of coaches in 2013.

This is our football’s glorious past that the NFF should truly endeavour to rediscover, while shunning the acts of corruption that sometimes taint its activities. The NFF needs to go for tested coaches wherever they may be found, not the largely mercenary types we have regularly had over the years, whose main interest is the fairly considerable foreign-currency denominated salaries of $55,000 or more they are paid monthly.

Repurposing Nigerian football for excellence is a task that really needs to be done; urgently.