Eagles In Search Of A Leader
By Kunle Awosiyan
Eagles do not make friend with other birds. It is a bird of pride and also a bird of prey. It feeds on flesh to live.
But when a Wild Dog eats an eagle, such a bird must have lost its power and pride. The Super Eagles of Nigeria is so desirous of a leader.
Our Super Eagles are giving me a nightmare. Their loss to Wild Dog of Guinea Bissau is giving me a bad sleep and a memory I want God to quickly erase from my mind.
I have asked rhetorically, why and how did Jose Peseiro become the coach of our national football team? What I saw on Friday were players whom themselves could coach this Peseiro himself.
Peseiro is too small a coach to lead the Eagles. His tactics were wrong, his technic was poor, his formation was faulty.
He acted more like a site engineer than a football coach. His persona on the bench was zero. He shouted but with no meaningful intention. He just wanted to be seeing as a Nigeria coach.
He lacks the capacity and the personality to be the coach of these stars who are doing well in Europe but refused to perform for the nation.
Victor Osimhen had come to Eagles at a wrong time. A global talent now struggling to make impact at AFCON qualifier shows how worse the Super Eagles had turned out to be.
Ademola Lukemam, Kelechi Iheanacho, Samuel Chukwueze, Wilfred Ndidi looked so much like average footballers because a coach lacks the brain to maximise their potentials.
Gernot Rohr came in as a listening coach but when he realised that the NFF was not doing the “right things”, he decided to do things in his own ways and was getting results but Amaju Pinnick’s leadership did not like his ways.
He must listen to the politics and obey “yes” even when the association is wrong.
Rohr was removed on the ground that he was flirting with young girls. He later sued NFF for refusing to pay his salary arrears. His performance was not so bad compared with that of Peseiro who had lost four matches in a row.
Too bad now that the present NFF leadership had inherited Pinnick’s low grade coach, Peseiro, a serial failure, to coach Eagles.
And again, a captain, Ahmed Musa who has refused to challenge this rubbish in the Eagles unlike like his predecessors.
Former Eagles captains had always challenged bad coaching. The likes of Steven Keshi, Peter Rufai, Austin Eguavoen, Austin Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Vincent Enyeama had had problems with coaches because of bad tactics.
At present, what we have are bad coach, gentle captain. These Eagles need leaders.
