Super Eagles now in a good place | Headline News
It's true that winning is everything, but it's also true that winning isn't everything. If the Super Eagles had won the AFCON trophy last Sunday, we would have been singing and dancing with uplifting excitement. In a country where the spirits of most Nigerians are battered by hunger, poverty, and sky-high prices for food and medicine, if we can do at least one thing to lift our spirits, we can all be temporarily happy. It would be.
However, the brave warriors of the Super Eagles could not bring home the trophy. That was the elephant in host country Ivory Coast. They hosted a good tournament and won good prizes for showing their good reputation on the playing field.
Having been one of the top four losers in the group stage, they bravely climbed to the podium of success. They were thought to be dead, but like Lazarus, they woke up and created the miracle of AFCON 2023. They deserve our utmost admiration.
Our Super Eagles have won this tournament three times: 1980, 1994 and 2013. We were hoping they would be happy to win his fourth trophy. They wanted it so much that they adopted the slogan “Let's do it again.” They came within inches of achieving a winning record. But they acquitted themselves admirably, considering where they came from.
Two years ago in Cameroon, the Super Eagles suffered a shocking defeat in the second round of AFCON. Nigerians cried. The Super Eagles also missed out on qualifying for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Nigerians cried. When the Super Eagles took part in this year's AFCON, I thought Nigerians would cry again.
Former coach Gernot Rohr led the Super Eagles to a bronze medal at the 2019 Egypt Games, but Nigerians believed that was not enough. We asked him to be fired and he was fired. Portuguese Jose Peceiro has been appointed as the new manager. Coming into the tournament, his record wasn't encouraging him. He played 20 matches, with nine wins, seven losses and four draws. Among the losses was a home match in Abuja to Guinea-Bissau's Minnows, who were unknown in African football.
The team's main problem was basically a defense that was leaking into the basket. We definitely had problems with goaltending. The coach was attacked with a bite and many soccer fans asked to be shown the exit door. Although he was not shown the exit door, he knew it was only ajar. He accepted a pay cut and stayed.
He also knew he had a collection of star players, especially shooters, technically called attackers, but his defense was erratic and needed to be strengthened, and he also knew that he was getting a lot of balls, including cheap ones. We also needed to find a goalkeeper who would prevent us from rolling slowly. into the net.
The country has had brave shot-stoppers in the past like Emmanuel Okala, Peter Rufai and Vincent Enyama. They belong to the pantheon of legends. But Nigerians were confident that if they looked carefully, this great country could produce such great people again.
'
We didn't know that the coach had gone to South Africa to observe the heroics of a local Nigerian goalkeeper. He brought in a man named Stanley Nwabali and put him between the sticks. I didn't know what to expect, but I was hoping for the best. But he commanded the early games against Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea and quickly won us over.
He showed confidence and exceptional skill in important matches against the tough-tackling Indomitable Lions of Cameroon and the highly tactical Bafana Bafana of South Africa. In the semi-final against Bafana Bafana, he saved two penalties in the shootout. No wonder he was named Man of the Match. Now we have a goalkeeper whose fingers are almost like Allardite's, gripping his ball with gum. The Super Eagles have solved their goaltending problem.
The coach also seems to have solved the leak at the back by adopting a fluid five-man defensive formation that worked for the team throughout the tournament. Apart from Nuwabari establishing himself as a great gatekeeper, there were other discoveries at the tournament.
The two players, Osimhen and Ekon, were everywhere throughout the tournament, moving from defense to attack and from attack to defense. Their omnipresent performance gave the team confidence, which led them to the final position.
Then there was Ademola Lookman, who established a reputation as a clinical finisher. That goal he scored against South Africa was a classic. He also proved himself to be a potential dead-ball master who can bend the ball like Beckham or curve it like Okocha. There was also Moses Simon, a master dribbler and master passer. If he takes his time and works on it, he will become a new Okocha.
Next up is Kelechi Iheanacholu, who didn't get much playing time due to injury. However, when he was introduced in the match against South Africa, he scored the decisive kick in the penalty shootout, giving Nigeria victory. Although Iheanacholu's kick was as short as a miniskirt, he contributed greatly to the victory.
This year's AFCON was full of upsets, whether as evidence of the unpredictable nature of football or of the growth of the sport in previously underdog countries. Morocco, who reached the semi-finals of last year's World Cup in Qatar, failed to advance to the AFCON final. Senegal, who came to defend the trophy and bring it back home, didn't even make it to the final. Other soccer powerhouses such as Ghana, Tunisia, Egypt, Cameroon and Algeria were also eliminated.
My conclusion is that soccer is growing in most parts of Africa. In other words, the competition in future contests will be even more intense than now. This should be a source of joy for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and football lovers on the continent.
Looking at this tournament, it is clear that the Super Eagles have bravely escaped being ridiculed as a failure. The Eagles didn't win this year's AFCON, but they weren't a failure. They were good in attack, good in defense and exquisite in midfield.
I have to pay tribute to the coach for giving us a new Super Eagles that we can be proud of. As I said at the beginning of this letter, winning is not everything. It may be all about discovering our strengths, as we did in Ivory Coast. That discovery could lead to future victories.
This should be credited to Coach Peseiro and his staff. This is the same team that was always criticized for being as loose as a wayward woman. Now it's as compact as a pair of tight-fitting jeans, and it's that compactness that helped carry the team to this year's AFCON finals. So we are in a good situation now.
However, it is unfortunate that over the years, the non-payment of player allowances and staff salaries has amounted to repeating the decimal point. why? Why can't we run football, a money-spinning enterprise, the way it is run elsewhere? Why? We just rushed to pay our allowances and salaries to play in a tournament in Ivory Coast.
why? If the second place wins, he can collect $4 million from CAF. After paying some of our money to our brave players, we have to spend that money wisely. Financial management appears to be a major problem for the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). In the past, there have been stories of corruption in the management of the vast amount of funds generated by the football federation from multiple sources.
If these ugly stories persist and gain traction, it will be difficult for the federation to gain support from groups demanding accountability and transparency in the management of NFF funds. It is in the association’s interest to demonstrate that it operates in a transparent and responsible manner.
The way the company manages its business reflects the well-being and other circumstances of the Super Eagles, Super Falcons, and other teams under its watch. If the new management team, led by Ibrahim Moussa Gusau, wants to succeed, they will have to do things differently to the way their predecessors ran football. I think he definitely wants to be successful.
Source: guardian.ng