Well, this writer isn’t suggesting that Super Eagles or Nigeria doesn’t have the capacity to win the AFCON but I firmly stand by the fact that with the way the team is constituted now, winning the AFCON may end up as an illusion.
Let’s look at the following issues dispassionately. Except these areas and challenges are fixed, this AFCON tournament won’t be different for Super Eagles from the last edition.
No team can boast of it’s readiness to win a tournament with a poor goalkeeping department. Present Super Eagles have the worst goalkeeping challenge in the history of Nigerian senior national football team.
Never have we had it this bad. Since 2015 when some characters frustrated Vincent Enyeama out of the Super Eagles, leading him into early retirement, Super Eagles have been struggling with the goalkeeping department.
Close to a dozen goalkeepers have been tried…both home-based and foreign based, yet the problem has not been fixed. In fact, it is getting increasingly bad and worrisome.
This informed the last minute invitation forwarded to Maduka Okoye who hasn’t experienced real first team competitive football in the last one year. He has been on the bench as third choice goalkeeper in Watford before moving to Udinese where he is yet to taste full action.
How can a honest stakeholder or fan say Super Eagles will win AFCON with this goalkeeping crisis? Such person isn’t seeing the reality on ground but merely looking at fictions.
POROUS DEFENCE
Let’s ask ourselves these simple questions, Is Super Eagles defence top notch? Is it rock solid? Does it rank among the best 10 defence lines in African football as we speak?
Are our defenders among the best in the world at the moment? Can we say we have world class defenders? Which clubs or where do our defenders play club football? How many of them get regular action at club level weekly?
We can go on and on with these questions. But the answers are obvious proof that we don’t have a defence line that can support or propel the rest departments of the team to win AFCON. That’s the gospel truth.
We must not forget that a good goalkeeper is as good as his defence. So if the attackers are busy scoring goals yet the defence is leaking and the goalkeeper is letting in goals, then the team will be at the mercy of the opponents
UNSTABLE MIDFIELD
Since Oghenekaro Peter Etebo exited the team due to injury, his bustling and shuttle runs coupled with his energy which supports and complements the performance of Wilfred Ndidi are lacking ingredients in the team’s midfield.
The team’s midfield in very ordinary, lacks creativity, energy, finesse and purpose. Worse still, there’s no creative player yet discovered to anchor the playmaking role.
I have maintained here that Joe Aribo isn’t the kind of creative midfielder Super Eagles are known for. Friday Ekpo, Etim Esin, Moses Kpakor, Austin Okocha and John Obi Mikel before Jose Mourinho converted him to a defensive role, just to mention a few, these were players with magical touches who conjured something for the team to excel. That isn’t the case with today’s Super Eagles.
There’s no doubt that Ndidi is the heart of Eagles midfield in the defensive role but once he is out to injury as seen in recent times, the team begins to struggle in the middle due to lack of coordination. Can such situation lead to winning the AFCON tournament?
INADEQUACIES OF COACHES, ATTACKING FORMATION, OPTIONS/PARTNERSHIP
Yes, Super Eagles can and have always boasted of good attackers but putting them into adequate and best use has equally been the headache of the managers or coaches of the team.
During the era of Gernot Rohr many thought the Franco-German would field a twin-attack of Victor Osimhen and Paul Onuachu who was red hot then in Belgium but, Rohr preferred to play names by pairing Osimhen with Iheanacho who as at then wasn’t better in front of goal than Onuachu.
That scenario may reoccur with the present team. Victor Boniface is doing well in Bundesliga with Bayer Leverkusen. One would think that pairing him with Osimhen will be the best option in a 4-4-2 formation.
And if it’s going to be a 4-3-3 formation perhaps it depends also on the opponents strategy, Jose Peseiro is expected to put his strongest men forward by playing a three-man attack of Osimhen in the middle with Boniface and Samuel Chukwueze to the right and left respectively.
Anyway yours sincerely isn’t a coach so let me limit my thoughts to the issue of coaches knowing the right players or attackers to use for a game. Which attacker can complement the effort of the others better? What qualities do they individually possess which could be useful to the team collectively? These among other questions are fundamentals before the coach picks his attackers for a game.
Suffice this to mean that it is not enough to have top quality forwards but fielding them for ultimate result is very important. This is one area the team’s coaches over time have failed.
Stop fielding players on the basis of names and clubs they play for. Use hungrier, more dedicated, fitter and in-form players if you want to win the AFCON tournament.
AGENTS/SCOUTS
The reality is that one can’t beat his chest to say Super Eagles can win the AFCON unless these issues are fully and dispassionately addressed.
Peseiro should play form and not name. He should stay away from agents and scouts who always use tournaments and competitions like AFCON to market, advertise, sell or transfer their players to bigger clubs with better deals.
These agents/scouts besiege Super Eagles camp during preparations to lobby or force their players into the final squad even with injuries…and during tournaments they influence or compromise the coaches to field their players who aren’t better than others just to catch AFCON actions to boost their CV and market values.
This has to stop. Agents/scouts are destroying our various national teams. This is the plain, bitter truth. They must stay away before and during tournaments to ensure the very best players feature for the team. By this we can be rest assured of getting something tangible from AFCON…otherwise, it’s another jamboree.
Enough said.
