The Nigerian National team has just qualified for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and this has raised the hopes of many Nigerians once again, with the name “Gernot Rohr” being on every Nigerian's lips, as the one that has liberated the Nigerian National team. Gernot Rohr, a German is the current Nigeria team coach and he has just taken Nigeria to the World cup without loosing a single match during the qualification stage.
Nigeria are three time African Champions, with their recent title in 2013, defeating Burkina Faso in the final. During April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest FIFA ranking ever achieved by an African football team. They have qualified for five of the last six FIFA World Cups, missing only the 2006 FIFA World Cup hosted in Germany and reached the round of 16 three(3) times. Their first World Cup appearance was the USA'94 World Cup hosted in the United States.
Having known a little about the Nigeria team, the question that has inspired this write up is: ‘are foreign coaches the answer to Nigeria's World Cup problem?’
In other to properly answer this question, we have to reflect back to all the coaches that have handled the Nigerian team. Nigeria has had a plethora of coaches ranging from foreign to indigenous from 1994 (Nigeria's first World cup qualification) till date. Generally however, the Nigerian team has been handled by over 18 foreign coaches since 1949 (when Nigeria played its first international game under JOHN FINCH, an English man, during colonial rule), before he handed over to Daniel Anyiam, who became the first indigenous coach of the Nigerian football team. The Nigerian team was then referred to as the ‘Red Devils'.
The Nigeria World Cup coaches include; SHAIBU AMODU (1994), BORA MILUTINOVIC(1998), FESTUS ONIGBINDE (2002), LARS LAGERBACK (2010), STEPHEN KESHI (2014) and currently GERNOT ROHR (2018).
From the list of coaches mentioned above, it is quite evident that Nigeria has been practicing a rotational system, exchanging the national team coaches from indigenous to foreign in every World Cup. This could be argued to have also contributed to Nigeria’s lack of a consistent pattern of play because we change coaches on a regular basis. One thing to note however is that is that it is the indigenous Nigerian coaches that have so far done better for the Nigerian team and not the foreign coaches because indigenous coaches have qualified from the group stages to the round of 16, two times out of the three times that we have qualified to the round of 16. On the other hand, more foreign coaches have won the African cup for Nigeria.
Knowing all this puts us in an uncertain position as to whether foreigners should be preferred to indigenous coaches or vice versa. In fact, what has made indigenous coaches not to perform better than they have done so far is due to “politics” in Nigeria. The indigenous coaches are always being manipulated by Nigerian politicians who want to control the coach's decisions. If he refuses to bulge, his job is then made even more difficult because his salary will be owed, sponsorships reduced and lots more..., but when it is a foreigner that is in charge, he is given more respect. This is quite disheartening because we value others more than ourselves.
The solution however is simple; there should be a limit to which Nigerian politicians can spread their manipulative tentacles. Indigenous coaches should be respected and given their chance to handle the team WITHOUT POLITICAL INFLUENCE! This doesn’t mean that once this is done, Nigeria will lift the World Cup but at least it'll open way for progress and maybe, just maybe we can eventually cruise towards World Cup glory.
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