After Nigeria crashed out in a crushing and heartbreaking manner against familiar foe Argentina on Tuesday, many Nigerians have fallen to a deep pit by deflecting blame; shouting ‘racism’ from FIFA and the Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir, for some decisions that did not go the Super Eagles way. I will like to point out I felt that Cakir had a good game, and he is rightly one of the best referees in the game. I only begrudge the fact that he did not send Javier Mascherano out for treatment when his face was bleeding for over ten minutes. But with the result for the Super Eagles, we got exactly what we deserved, and the boys played their hearts out and gave all they had – but it wasn’t just enough.
I was hoping the Super Eagles will win against Argentina to give Nigerians a much needed tonic after a very hard week for all Nigerians headlined by the massacre in Jos over the weekend. However, it ended with more heartbreak; well that is a discussion for another day. Let me state categorically that many Nigerians lack emotional maturity and if we continue to apportion blame and deflect from ourselves we will surely miss a step. Therefore, we will not be able to correct errors to compete better and grow as a footballing nation.
This is not to slate any player but Odion Ighalo had two very good chances to sink Argentina and ensure Nigeria’s qualification but he blew them and was left ruing those misses. If the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) under Amaju Pinnick was focused more on grassroot development and we developed more technical players, he probably would have taken the chance. Pinnick’s job is beyond just getting the national teams prepared for tournaments. Our grassroot football system is a mess, littered with poor coaches – quality players can never come from poor coaches – it will never happen in a million years. Coaching education has to be prioritised, with proliferation of coaching courses and batches year round, not the nonsense they struggle to do once a year.
Ever wondered why our NPFL games are so darn boring??? The coaches are so focused on the result, there is no style, panache and philosophy to football in Nigeria – it is all hokus pokus.
However, it is not all negatives from our World Cup elimination, in fact there is a whole lot more positives than negatives, but this is Nigeria, things are irregular here. Gernot Rohr is still a decent coach and his contract should be renewed to the next World Cup possibly. Our squad was the youngest at the World Cup and there is a lot to build on right? The reality is many of these players will have incredibly declined in the next four years – primarily because of age cheating.
Where are the likes of Chrisantus Macauley who lit up the 2007 U-17 World Cup? Do you know Neymar, Isco, Alvaro Morata, Xherdan Shaqiri, Granit Xhaka, Philippe Coutinho, and Casemiro played in the U-17 World Cup that took place in 2009. We finished second in that tournament and our players were considerably better than the players above, because they were all older. When will we realise that age cheating will lead us nowhere?
A Nigerian youth coach who wanted to remain anonymous stated that “Iheanacho’s performances and his general career decline has shown that age cheating is just a waste of time and won’t do our football any good. Where is the quality we all saw at U-17 level? Now there is no age limit, he is struggling to be relevant” .
It is also quite apparent that the stock we are producing are not good enough to compete at the international level. To remedy this, we are appealing to foreign based and trained players with Nigerian origins to represent us – this cannot be a long-term plan, surely?!
Read » Aftermath of #WorldCup exit, deflecting blame and the way forward for Nigerian football on YNaija
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