Do we really need a Presidential Task Force?

Okay now. This is bordering on the ridiculous.
A Presidential Task Force on the 2010 World Cup? And comprising 12 members! Whatever is coming next?

What I have found shocking is not even the constitution of the committee, but the overall lack of scrutiny, not just of the necessity of such a committee, but also of the possible motivation behind it and how it dovetails into existing structures. For the record, I do not support the decision. Except it means that the Federal Government is disenchanted with the present NFF board and is looking to ensure drastic, far reaching changes at the next elections. Now, that would be more like it.

So first off, what will the Task Force do?

Everybody knows that I have been and continue to be a strong critic of the current NFF board. For the simple reason that I expect the people who run our football to be held to the highest possible standards, and the current posse just dont cut it.

One thing they cannot be faulted for however, is the way they have handled this qualification campaign, from an administrative point of view.

Where in the past we would harp on inadequate preparation, this time, the Super Eagles have played friendly matches on every FIFA window with a full, first team squad.

Neither have we heard a pipsqueak about ticket refunds or match bonuses.

Invitation letters have been sent out on time, to both players and their clubs simultaneously.

Further, they actually found about about, and prepared for the artificial turf in Maputo well ahead of time and made preparations to get the Eagles acquainted with the surface.

I would be interested in hearing what else they could have done that they didnt do, that the Task Force will do better. From a technical perspective, will the Task Force take over the coaching duties from Amodu? Or will they headhunt and appoint a new coach?

Or maybe, they can take over from the players? Since there are 12 of them, we can have a starting team plus coach from among the members?

Otherwise, what exactly is the job of the Task Force supposed to be?

Apparently, the only thing I can think of is to ensure that the players are made aware that the President takes more than just a passing interest in their current campaign and ensure that they are sufficiently motivated to play with passion and pride for their country.

Acting on that assumption, I would say we needed just one, but no more than three people, for a one-off mission. Governor Chibuike Amaechi and two others would have been just fine.

I have a lot of respect for Governor Amaechi. I covered the Rivers State House of Assembly during his first term as Speaker, and the calm, unflustered but dignified manner in which he kept that House together was worth seeing first hand, the mark of good leadership.

His subsequent elevation to governor has brought these qualities to national attention. I rate him along with Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola as the standout administrators of the current dispensation.

So yes, he would do a fine job as President Umar Musa Yar'Adua's envoy to the team. And if we needed others, I would go for two ex-internationals. One from the past and one from the recent past. Segun Odegbami and Sunday Oliseh would have been my picks.

The choice of Odegbami easily explains itself. Oliseh not so easily, so let me explain.

Sunday Oliseh was one of the best leaders the Super Eagles ever had. He had the genuine interest of his teammates and his country at heart, and brooked no nonsense from either players or administrators.

When the Super Eagles were in danger of missing out on World Cup 2002, Oliseh rallied the troops and ensured that everyone pulled together to do what was neccessary to get there.

He understands how to get the best out of players just by his presence, and also knows how to reach them with a word or two.

Plus, he is gathering administrative experience from working at a European clubside, and I believe it will be only a matter of time before we start looking to his likes to lead us out of our present state of administrative inertia.

That, right there, is our very own Michel Platini.

This is the team that, for me, should have been put together to visit the players solely for this three-match series and let them know exactly what their President expects of them, and find out what they require to deliver on that expectation. And Mr President himself should have then made arrangements to be at the Kenya game (even sit down with the players prior to the game, either at Aso Rock or at their camp), to drive the message home.

That should have been that, and I have absolutely no doubt said message would have sunk home and things changed. As it is, no matter how hard it is denied, the Task Force IS second-guessing the NFF. It makes no difference that the NFF President is a member. I would suspect that it is to counter any suspicions of 'interference' that would lead to those hackneyed threats of 'FIFA ban'.

But my take? We never needed a 12-man committee, and certainly not for the qualifying long haul.

Amodu: Judgement Day or Salvation?

Nigeria versus Republic of Ireland.
This is just another friendly, right?
Wrong, wronger, wrongest!
It is Shuaibu Amodu's version of Terminator. This could turn out to either be his Judgement Day, or Salvation.
Ominously, in the film franchise, the former comes before the latter. Amodu should hope that will not be the case with him.
For a plethora of reasons, some feasible and others totally unreasonable, Amodu has not quite warmed his way into the heart of the average Nigerian football fan.
Whether he will ever do so remains a big doubt, but if he is to even start along that path, then Friday is the day.
Amodu may have won six games on the trot during the first phase of group qualifying games, but that has not convinced the overwhelming majority.
It is why there is such a panic ahead of the June qualifiers.
His tactical knowledge has been put under over a hundred million microscopes , his man management has come under question, and his team have been accused of playing some of the blandest and uninspiring football of any Nigerian football team ever.
Some of the discontent has also centred around Amodu's seeming reluctance to employ anyone other than his 'usual suspects' in friendly games, in order to foster competition.
A follow up to this is the accusation that Amodu has been unable to get his team to play with passion and committment in the green white green.
That, infact, was the biggest complaint following the 0-0 draw against Mozambique in March; that a draw, even a loss could have been tolerated if the players had shown a willingness to shed their blood on the pitch.
It was the same complaints in friendly games against Austria (1-1), Colombia (0-1) and Jamaica (0-0), that there was no passion in the team.
Whether the team agree with this or not appears to be immaterial to the fans, and most commentators.
And so Amodu has an opportunity to start the process of wooing the Nigerian football public anew.
The first of what is expected of Amodu's team on Friday night has already been forced on him.
Key players have withdrawn for varying reasons, leaving the coach with litte option but to go for the mostly untried and untested.
That means the likes of Dickson Etuhu, Yusuf Mohammed, Dele Adeleye, expected debutants Sone Aluko and Adefemi Olubayo as well as Joseph Akpala get a chance to impress and do their best to dig Amodu out of what looks to be an endless rut.
The second may also follow directly from the first. With so many 'new' players expected to be in the team, a fresh energy is expected.
What the fans want to see is a group of players hassling and harrying the opponent, refusing to shy away from tackles, infact, digging into tackles, moving the ball at speed, passing the ball well, running rather than strolling back to cover when they lose possession and generally putting themselves about.
With everything just seeming to follow along from the other, the next expectation follows naturally from the preceding ones: Amodu must show that he has the tactical ability to switch things around as he plays what is essentially a new crop of players.
If all this happens, can the coach and team expect a fresh romance with the Nigerian football public?
Maybe, but there are no guarantees.
However, they will have the comfort of at least knowing they did all they were required of.
Win or lose, the fans just want their Super Eagles to show passion and committment on the pitch.

NFF: Another day, another committee

There seems to be no end in sight to the number of committees the NFF churns out everyday.

Not content with having a technical committee which casts lustful eyes on every national team job while trying to usurp the duties of the coach in very public view, our Glass House continue to over reach.

This time, it is a committee to monitor the preparations of the Under 17 team.

Frankly, I do not care what the committee's terms of reference are. If the NFF do not trust their own appointed coach enough to let him fail or succeed on his own, then perhaps they should simply turn the exco into a body of coaches and let each one manage a diferent team.

That way, we can kuku avoid the need for supervision, since the 'supervisors' will be the ones doing the job in any case.

According to Lulu, there are 11 national teams at the moment.

So there should be more than enough to go round.

No love for Amodu

It is just as well that Super Eagles coach Shuaibu Amodu failed to make an appearance at the AIT Sports-organised Mobilisation Seminar for the Super Eagles World Cup qualification.
The event, inadvertently (there are those, Amodu included, who would dispute the use of the word) turned into an Amodu bash-fest.

He was described as dense, arrogant, poor man manager, maybe incompetent.

More than a lot of the contributions focused on how the team needs discipline, how old players need to be replaced with new, how the coach has got to design better tactics to squeeze wins out of the players. How he need to turn a group of non-performers into world beaters a la Greece of Euro 2004.

If one listened hard enough, there were even veiled suggestions about changing the coach.

Thankfully, the Berti Vogts experience meant that what would have been the cue for calls for a foreign coach were self-censored before they even had time to shape up as thoughts.

Not one person mentioned any need for a foreign coach.

Impressive.

However, Samson Siasia was given a rap around the ear for rushing to take over the Flying Eagles job when he could have waited to be installed as Amodu's successor.

There was no mention of how we have collectively (as fans and media) contributed to whittle down the brand value of the team from a brand health rating of 86.4% to a shocking 17.1%.

That is a topic for another day.

It is debatable, if most of these statements would have been made, and in the manner they were, if Amodu were to have been present, but that is not the issue.

In that sense, maybe his absence served a good purpose, in that it got folks to speak with more freedom, without the need for sensitivity.

I have no doubt in my mind, however, that Amodu was watching on TV.

Would he have been pleased by what he heard? I doubt it.

Will he see it as a chance to make amends and start afresh? Possibly.

Ultimately, will it help in our bid to get to South Africa? Hopefully, yes.

At the end of the day, while no formal conclusions were reached, the general consensus as fas as I could make out were

1. The Super Eagles are condemned to qualify for the World Cup. Nothing else is acceptable.
2. The path towards achieving that lies in annexing a minimum of four points from the back to back games against Tunisia.
3. To do so, the team needs competition, with younger players needing more run-outs in the team.
4. Tactically, Amodu needs to get more speed, as well as more passion in the team.
5. Nigerians need to be more supportive of their team, partly by turning home games into a sea of green.
6. But more importantly, if the team wants the support of Nigerians, they need to show that they are ready and willing to die on the pitch for the green and white shirt.

These, in a nutshell, constitute the highlights of the debates and I have no doubt they are fairly representative of what most agreed needs to be done.

However, what was being thought but not said, is that Amodu should be fired.

Because that is not a realistically feasible option at this time, the agreement is to support him and get us through this trying times, at least until the next match.

One thing I took away from that gathering, and the general concern about qualification, is that the nation as a whole will settle for nothing less than the ultimate: a good team, playing good football, winning and qualifying for major tournaments and with a good shout at winning those tournaments.

I am one of those incurable believers in our Super Eagles and as I type, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that those lads will get us to the big party.

But we all need to pull together. Team, fans, media, sponsors, everyone.

Mozambique, our collective failure

Since that 0-0 draw in Maputo, Nigeria coach Shuaibu Amodu and his players have taken a rollicking from both media and fans.
But maybe it is time for that group to look in the mirror and see how they also contributed to that result.
Nigeria lost two points in that game to two things
1. A selection error and
2. Insufficent desire and committment to victory.
Both of these, as far as I am concerned, were the direct results of fan and media pressure on both coach and team.
Make no mistake. Every coach is under pressure to win, and the Super Eagles job is no exception.
But any coach who has masterminded six successive wins in World Cup qualifying, with just one goal conceded, deserves to be cut a little slack.
Not so for Nigeria coach Shuaibu Amodu.
Sitting down to chat with Shuaibu in his hotel room at the team's Mpumalanga training camp prior to the World Cup qualifier against Mozambique, it was clear to see that this was a man under a considerable--I might go so far as to say, well nigh unbearable--amount of pressure.
And it is not difficult to fathom why.
This was a coach who took over a team in tatters, their confidence shot and with their fans turned against them and turned things around in rapid quick time
Any other coach, especially if he was one of foreign persuasion, would probably have been hailed as a messiah after results like that.
But not Amodu.
Apparently, the bad belle from the events of 2002 continue to simmer below the surface and two indifferent results--mind, I didnt say performances--in friendly games against Colombia and Jamaica got things bubbling to the surface.
Flak came pouring from each and every quarter, especially over his selections.
One of his so-called 'sins' was in fielding 'bench-warmers' and 'tired legs', that tired euphemism whose meaning has since become lost for the hackneyed usage.
There were calls to dump the 'old players' and replace them with new blood, preferably from the Olympic team.
The sustained criticism stung not just the coach, but the majority of his playing staff.
Most of the talk in camp was about the negativity directed at the team from the media and fans.
The players could not understand how they could still be facing such stringent criticism even after the results of the previous rounds.
To put this into perpective. They understood the criticism after Ghana 2008.
But fans are supposed--no, expected--to get behind their team through thick and thin, but especially through thick, when that team wins games.
But in the Nigeria case, after coming out from the first round of qualifying as the only team in Africa to corner all 18 points, they were stunned to see that they still faced an unwarranted and inexplicable lack of appreciation.
Amodu was put in a position where he had to put himself between the players and the negativity in order to deflect attention from his players.
In doing so, he allowed himself to get sucked into the mire. Inevitably, it told on his selection for the game, and it wasnt about the glut of options.
From the opening day of camp, the coach was already agonising over who to start.
By Saturday, when the result of the Tunisia win in Kenya came through, the tension was thick enough to cut.
And that is where Amodu made what I think was his mistake.
Mikel showed up in camp with lip blisters that clearly proved he had been ill and in no fit state to start a game, much less play all 90 minutes.
In another time, another place, Amodu would either have started Kanu, or thrown his skipper on when it became clear that Mikel was not fully at one hundred percent.
Kalu Uche was also available to play some part in midfield, but Amodu, in trying to pander to the wishes of the 'play the young guns' brigade, left Mikel on. And when it was time for a substitute, brought in another youngster in Femi Ajilore, instead of the experienced duo of Kanu or Kalu.
So, in addition to Osaze Odemwingie, Obinna Nsofor, Kaita and Onyekachi Apam, that made five players from the Olympic team that played in that game.

Exactly what the fans had been calling for. Unfortunately, it didnt quite work out.
Mikel, usually such a stabilising influence in midfield for both club and country, fell just short of being the glue that was expected to hold the side together.
And so, almost tragically, in some subliminal bid to spite his face, Amodu looked to have taken a knife to his own nose.
With that midfield not working, everything else sort of started to fall apart at the seams, leaving the Mozambicans to enjoy a field day.
But that was not the only problem.
The players too were fighting individual battles of their own against the media stereotypes.
There was one occasion where Taye Taiwo took a throw-in to Mikel. Naturally, the left back expected to get the ball back. Instead, Mikel tried to take on two players and eventually lost possession.
At Chelsea, he would not do that. But because he was probably trying to impress an increasingly over-demanding and critical Nigerian fan base, the youngster tried to take on more responsibility than he should.
I could go on and on for each player, but I'll let this suffice.
And then there was the artificial turf.
A player mentioned to me that there was something different about the turf from the one they trained on at Mpumalanga. But it wasnt until a day or two after the game, while looking through the pictures I had taken that I stumbled on it: the Maputo pitch was that little bit darker than the Mpumalanga one.
Apparently, there was more of the plastic underlay in the Maputo pitch than there was at Mpumalanga.
As a result, the players were wary of running too much or committing to tackles too much in order to avoid bad knee injuries, which almost always result from such conditions.
One player (I will not name names) was just coming back off a long injury, and to expect full-blooded tackling on that turf, when Nigeria is notorious for abandoning players who get injured on national duty, was asking a mite too much.
Sad as this may be, that was the fans' biggest quarrel with the team; that there was a lack of committment.
Even the players themselves acknowledged it.
But, and this was key: under such difficult circumstances, players draw motivation from the support they get or expect to get, from their fans.
That is what pushes them to give that extra bit, to make that extra tackle, to stretch that extra muscle, in order to guarantee victory.
This group, however, had received little appreciation from winning six games previously and quite frankly, had little motivation to raise their game and risk anything for an unappreciative country.
And why should they, when their previous efforts had drawn little but ire?
Most of these boys have given loads and made sacrifices in service of their country, and get little but over-the-top abuse and insults in return, for every little slip.
We all--players, fans and media--want to go to the World Cup. But we must all work as a team to achieve that objective.

If the fans want committment from their Super Eagles, they should start by showing some loyalty of their own.
Like the Mozambicans in the pic to the right.
This means getting behind their team, through good and bad times.
One question each and every Nigeria fan should ask is; what have I/we done for these players?

Its time to look in the mirror.

Simple.

Obaseki and the art of misyarning

Everytime Nigeria Premier League chairman Oyuiki Obaseki opens his mouth, I cringe.
The man is a walking, talking advertisement for how to misyarn in public.
For a man who is head of Nigeria's domestic league, some of the utterances that Obaseki spits out are more the stuff of a traditional village meeting, complete with calabash of the prevailing local brew, than the composed dignified statements of a true leader.
His latest outburst came last Wednesday while announcing the suspension of Bayelsa United from the league for their indebtedness to players.
He made a statement to the effect that he 'swore an oath that Bayelsa United will not kick a ball until they pay the money they owe."
I mean, how much more uncouth can a man get?
Where did he swear the oath? Was it at Okija shrine or somewhere in Benin?
Please someone at the NPL, anyone, needs to put a clamp on Chief Obaseki's mouth.
Consider it a national service

Why Bosso survived

You may have read the story on KickOffNigeria.com about how Flying Eagles coach Ladan Bosso survived the sack on Wednesday.
Well, what I gather from an inside source at the NFF is that he was saved by Iroha. Now, how is that possible?
We have to start from the beginning.
Bosso was slated to be fired after the Canada 2007 fiasco where his Flying Eagles team disappointed in a 1-4 Q/F loss to Chile.
The coach himself compounded matters by accusing the ref of racism, a charge which earned him a FIFA ban.
But then Sports Minister Hassan Gimba ensured that he stayed on.
Subsequent dismal performances, including the most recent one at the WAFU Cup, had Nigerians calling for his head.
The almost-last straw was when he went on radio to say that a planned pre-tournament trip to Kenya had to be shelved because the NFF had no money, so he should not be blamed if the team fails.
The bigwigs at the Glass House were miffed, and that is putting it mildly.
I was informed that Bosso was in the picture of the entire Kenya trip and the circumstances behind the cancellation, which included the fact that the East Africans (who were expected to line out their senior side), developed cold feet when they were drawn against Nigeria in the World Cup qualifiers.
Consequently, the arrangements were never finalised.
So the NFF big guns were aggrieved to hear the coach hammer them in a radio interview.
at the meeting on Wednesday morning, NFF President Lulu was all for firing him with immediate effect, and promoting Iroha to Head Coach.
But other members, led by Taiwo Ogunjobi, prevailed on Lulu to back down.
One of the arguments used was that Iroha is involved in player agency, and it would not be right to hand over a cadet team to a coach who moonlights as a player agent.
That was how Bosso survived.
And now the question must be asked as to Iroha's long term future as a national coach.

Happy New Year!

Its 2009, and the makeover is almost complete.
A new beginning will be upon us all on these pages.
For now, enjoy the festivities

Comments

Oh, and did I add that I would so love to have those comments pouring in?

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Believe!