Nigeria Versus Swaziland: Matters Arising!
It was an unbelievable sight. Early this week, the
Adokie Amiesimaka Stadium, Port Harcourt,
Nigeria, erupted in an orgy of celebration
immediately after the second-leg match between
Nigeria and Swaziland. Nigeria won 2-0.
The picture remains etched on my mind
– at the head of a sea of spectators that
rushed onto the pitch to hug and kiss
their gallant heroes was a usually cool
and taciturn Sunday Oliseh, jumping and
pumping hands in an ecstasy of joyous
celebration that spoke volumes about the
present state of Nigerian football.
Until the first leg match in Lobamba,
Swaziland, both countries had never met
at any level of football, and the reason is
simple – the southern African country
has never really ‘existed’ as a football
power. They have been so ‘small’ even in
their southern African region of the
continent in terms of football that to
emerge from the sub-region and play
against a team like the Super Eagles, one
of the true giants of African football, is a
very long shot indeed.
In a sense, therefore, I agree completely
with Sunday Oliseh that there are no
more minnows in African football.
Now, back to the match. The spontaneous
ecstatic celebrations immediately after
the match were more out of relief of
surviving an ordinary but hardworking
Swazi team determined to create a little
bit of their own history by defeating the
great Super Eagles on the hallowed
ground of Port Harcourt than the nature
of the victory itself.
A few years ago, Nigerians would have
taken such a match as the appetizer
before breakfast, an opportunity for
Nigerian strikers to amass goals and add
to their statistics. Instead, it became a
heart-wrenching match that left
Nigerians on the edge of their seats until
it was settled in the dying minutes of the
match with second goal and a sending-
off that reduced the Swazis to 10 men.
Haba, is it that bad for Nigerian football?
How did the country arrive at this low
point in its football? What is really
happening to the game in the country?
What must be done to stem the present
tide of things?
When I think of what Sunday Oliseh has
had to do in order to achieve even this
little breath of success I am left in a
lurch of incomprehension and
apprehension.
The Super Eagles are obviously a long
way from the once dreaded giants of
African football that paraded the
Chukwus, the Adokiyes, the Okochas, the
Yekinis and the Kanus, that made mince
meal of most African teams, that were
feared and respected all over the world,
and that produced five African players
of the year in a decade!
Now the team struggles to win every
match, even mediocre teams (like
Swaziland) and the country ends up
celebrating the victory as if it has just
won the Africa Cup of Nations!
There is something fundamentally not
going right with the game in the country.
I carefully watched the two legs of the
World Cup qualifiers against Swaziland
and I felt that Sunday Oliseh (even if I
had known and said so before he took
up the job) is the most qualified
indigenous coach with the qualifications,
knowledge and intellectual capacity to
steer the new Super Eagles at this point
in time, he has also come in at the most
inauspicious time when domestic
Nigerian football is contributing much to
the essential production of exceptional
new talent without which Oliseh would
find it extremely hard to succeed and
match the awesome image, reputation
and the people’s expectations of the
global brand, Super Eagles.
I must admit that even my initial
conservative estimation of how bad
things were is wrong. Things are a lot
worse and administrators do not seem to
know or appreciate the depth of the
decline, nor the cause, nor even what
can best be done. Just ‘how bad’ is best
illustrated by the final list of nominees
for African player of the year 2015
award by CAF that has no Nigerian
player’s name, and the recall of ‘old’
Obafemi Martins to the ‘new’ Super
Eagles squad!
To recall Obafemi Martins, way past his
prime, but playing well and scoring
goals in the American MLS where he is
playing out the remaining years of his
career, shows is a desperate resort by
Oliseh to temporarily dump his building-
a-new-team mantra and go back to the
old and trusted player in order to
survive the threat posed by group of
football journeymen from a tiny African
country that Warri Wolves FC would
have taken to the cleaners if things were
working well. Of course things are far
from normal as far as Nigerian football,
technically, is concerned.
I can now hardly recognize the Super
Eagles anymore. They played like a team
from the archives of Nigerian football,
kicking long high balls from defense to
attack in the long abandoned English
style of play. Nigerian football changed
with the exposure to Brazilian football
from 1979 that introduced expressive
midfield artists and extremely fast
wingers that defined the start of a new
generation and a new genre of football.
Systematically, all of that is fading away
like the sun at evening. The Eagles are
struggling to string passes, keep
possession, entertain the watching
audience, score great goals and win
matches even before kick-off.
The two matches against Swaziland were
a clear demonstration that things are
worse with Nigerian football at the
highest level, national level, than we may
be currently thinking.
The country needs to revamp and re-
design its general national football
development strategy by critically
looking at all facets of the domestic
game, schools programmes, role of games
masters, teaching football at the
grassroots, coaching at a higher level, the
domestic leagues, authenticity in its age-
group competitions, return to playing
matches on excellent grass fields in most
stadia in the country, shelving the win-
at-all-costs mentality, stop cheating in
age group competitions, particularly at
Under-17 level in both male and female
football, control the migration of players
overseas, and so on and so forth.
Oliseh has his job well cut out for him.
He is doing the only thing he can do for
now – searching for Nigerian players in
middle class clubs all over the world and
hoping they will be good enough for his
dream team.
That’s all he can do really for now. The
bigger responsibility lies with all those
in charge of the domestic game – the
NFF, the NPL, the other Leagues, the
NSSF and other grassroots programme
organisers.
There is the need for a proper organised
‘conversation’ amongst truly technically
astute football persons so that a proper
workable blueprint of actions that can be
articulated that can put Nigerian football
back on track of real development at the
highest level of the game.
Only then will the celebration, such as
we saw this past week in Port Harcourt,
be meaningful!
I join millions of Nigerian in
congratulating the Super Eagles for their
victory and for going to the next round
in the World Cup qualifiers, where the
real and greater challenges lie
menacingly.
I also congratulate the victorious
Under-17 national team, even if for
reasons that most Nigerians must now
know, I choose not to celebrate them!
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