The Need to Immediately Evaluate Nigerian Football Coaches -By Jide Alaka

Jide Alaka

Aliko Dangote made a statement some years ago when he said, “Why buy a N16 million car and give it to someone who failed WAEC to repair?” The result will be a disaster; and that is the scenario playing out in our football today. Most of the coaches are former players, who have received no additional education for the job they are trying to do – so they make a hash of it or introduce procedures and tactics that they learnt 20 years ago for today’s game that has gone scientific.

In the last couple of days, Nigerian football has suffered some ignominious defeats, which if the coaches had prepared their teams differently would have had better endings. The fact of the football matter in Nigeria is that the country lacks capable coaches – both at the club and national team levels.

In the last 30 days, two Nigerian teams – the U-20 national football team and the senior women’s football team have gone for tournaments and lost out to teams that they should otherwise have triumphed over.

Sun Tzu, in the Art of War, declared, “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” In the case of our coaches, they simply get to the pitch before trying to implement a plan, while most of their opponents have implemented their victory plan before setting foot on the pitch.

The Falcons started the World Cup tournament in good fashion, coming from two goals down to reach a draw with Sweden and, with that result, football fans in the country shouted their relief. But the subsequent performances – against Australia and the USA showed that the coach was not the architect of that comeback, but that the girls had simply turned things around by themselves.

The greatest damnation of Coach Edwin Okon’s competence will be this; in three group matches at the World Cup, he deployed three right full backs! That in essence means that he did not know the best player for that position and did not prepare himself against his opponents. The World Cup was not an emergency, so the coach and the Nigeria Football Federation had enough time to prepare tactically for the opposition they were going to face, but that was not the case.

Another fact of the matter was that out of the six goals conceded at the World Cup, three were from corner kicks.

For the Flying Eagles, Coach Manu Garba continuously showed his naivety in preparing his boys for matches. Against Brazil, he failed to show game management, and even in the 4-0 win over North Korea, the deficiencies in preparation were all too glaring. In the round of 16 clash with Germany, his team showed a lack of game knowledge and the 1-0 defeat at the end clearly flattered them.

Emeka Nwani, a football journalist who has followed the local league passionately for over 18 years said, “Nigerian coaches need training and re-training. They are so clueless and don’t know what to do at every given time.”

In club competitions in Africa (African club competitions), for the third consecutive season, no Nigerian club side has made it into the group stage of the CAF Champions League or that of the Confederations Cup. A particular coach (highly esteemed in local circles) told me in 2014 that he did not need to see a tape of his opponents to prepare his team for a continental match. He subsequently lost the two-legged encounter.

Aliko Dangote made a statement some years ago when he said, “Why buy a N16 million car and give it to someone who failed WAEC to repair?” The result will be a disaster; and that is the scenario playing out in our football today. Most of the coaches are former players, who have received no additional education for the job they are trying to do – so they make a hash of it or introduce procedures and tactics that they learnt 20 years ago for today’s game that has gone scientific.

Professor Patrick Omo-Osagie wrote on goal.com on the acquisition of the PROZONE software by the NFF, “If we reorganise our football development, this will be a tremendous advantage. If we train and educate our coaches with the programme, our football teams will be better for it.”

The the fact that stares us in the face is the competency and intelligence of the raw product – the coaches. No matter how good PROZONE is; it will be garbage in, garbage out if the coaches we choose for our clubs and national teams lack the ability to think and understand their failings with a mind to improve. Our present coaches seem not to have an idea of the quality and variability of the talents at their disposal, coupled with a total ignorance of what their opponents are up to.

It is worthy then to end this piece with another quote from Sun Tzu. “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Jide Alaka, a former footballer, passionate with the analysis of the game, biographies and digital marketing, writes from Lagos.