Emenalo As Successor To Rhor

It took quite a while for Nigerians to grasp the reality of the problems of under achievements of the country’s senior football team at international meets. Being a man of good hunches, I knew long ago that at the core of the problem was age-cheat specifically and government interference generally. Really, the approach of Coach Gernot Rohr is to build a team based on the merits of actually being young rather than the merits (or lack of it thereof) of claiming to be 10 years or more than one’s true age. The outcome of Rohr’s philosophy (let us for now happily call it so) is clear for all to see: Nigerians could now gauge our true strengths and weaknesses against opposing teams.

If humility permits, let us also admit that the massive injection of “oyinbo boys” (foreign-raised Nigerian-rooted bi-racials like Carl Ikeme, Leon Balogun, William Troost-Ekong, Tyrone Ebuehi, and foreign-raised Nigerian-rooted mono-racials like Victor Moses, Alex Iwobi, Ola Aina, Brian Idowu) has raised the standard of our play immensely because these “oyinbo” lads did not wait until their early 20s before they chose the route of soccer as profession. Thus, down the line in the future when Gernot Rohr eventually bids farewell to the national team, the person currently in the right circumstance that can fill his position is Michael Emenalo who was formerly Director of Football at Chelsea Football Club. Mr. Emenalo would relate very well with highly sensitive and technically-inclined youngsters of Nigerian heritage who are presently in football academies scattered all over Europe. Nigerian football has really come of age.