The Super Eagles in 2014 World Cup

The 2014 World Cup holding in Brazil in June is barely two months away and most countries that qualified for the tournament must be putting finishing touches to their preparations to ensure they put on a showing that justifies their qualification from their group. Nigeria’s Super Eagles are one of the qualifiers in Africaincluding the Black Stars of Ghana, the Elephants of Cote D’ivoire, Cameroun and Algeria.

As the host, Brazil’s team has played almost every team from top football playing countries, a mark that it does not only want to play host but also intends to win the cup for the umpteenth time. Pundits and soccer aficionados alike have picked Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany as possible winners of the 2014 edition.

But can a dark horse team come from obscurity; come from nowhere, as it were, and win the coveted trophy, thereby upsetting this predicted outcome and put to shame the smugness of these countries and bookmakers? If so can that dark horse be our own Super Eagles? After all, having earlier qualified for the tournament two times before this 2014 one, it can be assumed that they have had some modicum of experience in participating in the gruelling football fiesta, as opposed to being rank novices in World Cup events. The earlier experiences should be a valuable pedigree or pedestal from which to launch and stake a claim for the title.

Many people may scoff that hoping to win the global football cup amounts to grasping or reaching beyond our limit, a tall order, a dream emanating from over estimation of the Super Eagles’ soccer prowess and determination. And that thinking of winning the World Cup is simply getting ahead of ourselves. Some people would argue that a rational aspiration for Nigeria’s Super Eagles should be to scale over the group stage and join Argentina as qualifiers in to the next stage and from there take the tournament’s challenge as it comes.

Well, the point is well taken, but there is no harm in aiming to be the best team at the tournament. So, I insist Nigeria’s Super Eagles may well be that dark horse team that would surprise everyone. Yes, Nigeria’s Super Eagles can jolly well surprise themselves and by extension, Nigerians by winning the coveted trophy, but then that would not happen unless and until the preparation for the tournament is undertaken with the appropriate attitude and correct winning mentality. By this I mean that the ministry of sports and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) would have to overhaul their laidback, lackadaisical and cynical manner of managing Nigeria football.

One does not have to be a keen follower of Nigerian soccer and how it is managed to know it is riddled with the less than wholesome attitude of officials preoccupied more with what they stand to gain from the whole enterprise of running football than making Nigeria a formidable and enterprising nations, like Brazil, Spain and Germany, just to mention a few illustrious soccer countries. For example, a few months ago the Super Eagles almost aborted participating in the Confederation Cup hosted by Brazil because the NFF reneged on the amount it promised the players as winning bonuses. The players, in turn refused to proceed to Brazil from Namibia where they had gone to play one of the world cup qualifying rounds. To ensure Nigeria participated, the government had to intervene by paying the balance. With this initial hiccup it was not surprising that the team put up a woeful showing at the tournament.

Any thought that a lesson would be learned from that episode should discarded because it would never happen. Match bonuses have always constituted a perennial sticky and thorny issue. It has always been the Achilles Heels of Super Eagles’ and the other age group team’s campaigns in soccer tournaments and the NFF could not be bothered whether or not it affects Nigeria performance in tournaments, as long as its members gain some pecuniary advantages at the expense of the hardworking players.

Another matter, not altogether unrelated to the one cited is the humiliation of coaches in the hands of NFF officials as a result of delayed salaries and other emoluments. Coaches salaries are delayed interminably reducing them to borrowing and/ or begging to sustain themselves. Coach Stephen Keshi and his coaching crew were paid several months’ salaries and entitlements a few weeks ago. Granted that Keshi having played in Europe and coached a number of African countries cannot exactly be said to be indigent, the same cannot be said for many other coaches, who rely strictly on the pay packet to perform their financial obligations. These ones are subjected to the indignities of looking for sustenance elsewhere, most times from their former players playing for foreign teams.

An indication of such humiliation is the unending battle raging between those insisting on foreign coaches and those rooting for reliance on home grown coaches, particularly if they were the ones that qualified the team for the tournament. The ministry of sports and the NFF has just resolved to repose their confidence in Stephen Keshi and his crew. Contemplating to replace Stephen Keshi with a foreign technical adviser is not only baffling but an unpardonable display of inferiority complex on the part of football officials in Nigeria. What impacts were the officials envisaging any foreign technical adviser would make when the tournament gets underway that would be beyond Keshi and his crew? What other proof of competence does the NFF want that has not been displayed by him and his assistants?

Under Keshi, the Super Eagles won the Africa Cup by defeating teams that were coached by respected foreign coaches. Not only that, under him the Super Eagles rode on the backs of many teams coached by foreign coaches to qualify for the Mundial. It was just as well therefore that good sense prevailed and the noxious idea of a technical adviser was shelved which removed the likely introduction of rivalry and intrigue that would have dogged the Super Eagles campaign in the 2014 soccer fiesta in Brazil. Coach Stephen Keshi has more than proved he has the knowledge and technical skills to perform at the highest level of the game and respect and honour are not showed to him when having done the yeo-man’s work, some fellow with no clue about the insight and chemistry he deployed to build his winning team now comes to takeover from him. I insist that disaster has been avoided in Brazil by sticking with our own Stephen Keshi. He should not only be left alone, he should also be allowed a free hand to pick his team, having been in the business for so long, he surely would demonstrate the necessary sensitivity to choose a team that would reflect Nigeria in every way and capable of winning the trophy. Re: Mugabe swansong... Why should Mugabe be castigated for saying that Nigeria is corrupt? If Nigeria is not corrupt why is it that few individuals are extremely rich? The truth is Mugabe is superior to the so called founding fathers and Zimbabwe is the only country fighting for her economic freedom in Africa. Yes, corruption would not go until the people destroy the dependence on capitalist system. The two are one.

Amos Ejimonye 07085284103 Kaduna.