P.M. News (Lagos)
Femi Adepoju
19 February 2002
Lagos — Super Eagles chief coach, Shuaibu Amodu, has been variously lampooned by journalists, sports administrators and soccer enthusiasts for the national team's disappointing performance at the just concluded Mali 2002 African Nations Cup championship. Ace sports broadcaster, Larry Izamoje opines that Amodu's problem is more fundamental. In this chat with Lanre Olaleye, Larry lists the unpardonable sins of the embattled coach. Excerpts: ou have to know exactly what your players are doing. You must have in your computer a data base of Nigerian foreign-based players. You should be able to stand up and say this player played 10 matches, was substituted for seven games, limped off the field once. You must know what is happening to each player. Amodu relied on names used by Bonfrere. But he never followed their present form. If Amodu had used the present form of players, he would not have invited Victor Agali. He would not have taken him to Mali. Because on current form, Agali, a fine player, was injured just before the winter break in Germany and therefore was not playing from October. Look, he was not match-fit.
You don't throw him into such a big competition like the Nations Cup. So, the coach did not know what was happening to the players. Privately, he should have done all that check but he did not. He started inviting injured players into his team: Yakubu Adamu, Pius Ikedia, Emeka Ifejiagwa. Ifejiagwa kept deceiving everybody that he was fit because if you remember Ghana/Nigeria 200 Nations Cup, it was injury that caused him not to make the team and this has entered the record books for ever. Again, another championship came and injury wants to make him miss it, so Ifejiagwa hid the injury until the doctors discovered and then it came to light that what journalists kept saying was indeed true, that this boy was not championship-fit.
And then as a coach, Nigeria pays Amodu N1 million every month. There's nothing wrong with using N100,000 to secure his job. Did Amodu, without waiting for Nigeria to show that he is indeed committed to his job, committed to this country, take a separate, private trip to Mali to have the texture of the grass to see that in some areas, the fields were undulating. It took somebody to travel to Mali for that jersey to be produced for Cameroun. Nike deceived us they were going to make open jerseys for Nigerian players. Did you see any hole in those jerseys worn by the Eagles? Did you see any hole? I didn't see any. If you are a sports journalist, you buy magazines, books to update your knowledge. I can't just come and speak with Burkina Faso. I can't be shouting. We call that self-development. What has Amodu done to develop himself? Since he was appointed coach, have you ever heard that Amodu said please Nigerians, I won't be available this weekend. I'm going to England for a short meeting with Alex Ferguson, even if it is for one night, with Arsene Wenger, even for one night. What has he done for himself?
We have a coach who does not know where he's coming from. And the coaches did not even have the tape of our opponents. He's my friend and now we must say it. Keshi asked me to help them get the tape of the Algerian team. And I told him I'm not paid to do that and that was when they were already in Otta. They knew Liberia because they played Liberia over two legs in the World Cup qualifying series. But they never knew Mali and Algeria. So they were looking for the tapes of those two teams while they were already in camp and they knew we were going to play these countries long ago.
And then under these coaches, how many minutes were these boys training? The players will confess to you that one of the reasons they never liked Bonfrere in his last days was that he was over-working them. Bonfrere was tactically bad but in terms of physical conditioning, he would train them and they would become very strong so that in a match situation, it may not be tactics that carried you but your physical condition. In this case, the coaches were shallow tactically and the boys were also without strength physically. So you found that in all the matches we played, we could not see good football, we could not see strong players. Everything was amiss.
That was what was happening throughout. Against Algeria, we galloped. Against Mali, we almost lost. Thank God for that Ike's last minute deflection.... Amodu ....There were many things that he did not do. You see, at this level, coaching becomes a different thing from the ordinary.
If you are going to play Senegal, you should be prepared psychologically for everything. Somebody should have managed Julius Aghahowa. It was so easy under Amodu what Nigeria team was. Yakubu Aiyegbeni and Agali that he took as top strikers, he didn't field them. Agali was the last but one striker to get into that camp. Aiyegbeni was the last striker that entered the team. I didn't say he got into camp because he was never in camp. Aiyegbeni was never in camp. He joined them at the airport.
And then, there was vindictiveness on the part of Amodu. When you are vindictive, you cannot move a country forward. If you are patriotic, you can move your country forward. Patriotism is about what is good for the country. Vindictiveness was what was good for him. He sent Oruma a letter, Oruma did not come, so, "Oruma will not play as long as I am coach." That was what was good for him. Akwuegbu, if you like you score, you don't score, for as long as I am here, you are not going to play. And I am still asking the question so that Nigerians will answer. Are you sure that geography did not play a role in this whole matter. Yakubu Aiyegbeni, take his last four months at Maccabi. Benedict Akwuegbu, take his last four months at AK Graz. Let's go to their clubs in Europe. Aiyegbeni's club in Israel, how many goals has he scored? Benedict Akwuegbu, how many goals did he score for his club in the last four months? Who was hotter between the two? If because of antecedents, you wanted to play Agali, who should you pick as the alternate striker between Aiyegbeni and Akwuegbu?
If you want to even use judgment because Amodu said if you were not part of us from the beginning, you cannot be part of us now, if we are talking about the Nations Cup, the goal that gave us the Nations Cup ticket was scored by Akwuegbu, so he was part of the Nations Cup. He might not be part of the World Cup. The guy was there, he scored three goals and yet Amodu dropped him.
What kept Aghahowa in the Nations Cup? Aghahowa was building on the experience garnered in Ghana/Nigeria 2000. Because of vindictiveness, Amodu sacrificed the experience Akwuegbu garnered in Ghana/Nigeria 2000 which he should have used for Nigeria's good in Mali.
Akwuegbu had played on this altar before. It was no new terrain for him. He knows what to do. He had seen the heat of Nations Cup championship. For another average player of Akwuegbu's stature, Yakubu Aiyegbeni who had not played in any Nations Cup final, who did not understand Nations Cup football. And so you found that we got to Mali, first match they tried the two strikers, they failed. And then that was where the main problem with the team started. So, because the attack was bad, pressure was on the midfield. And when the midfield could not cope, it was always the defence we were all seeing. That's why we were all saying "our defence is strong o! our defence is strong o! Because there was no attack, no midfield, so the pressure was on the defence. So, each time, we were seeing Taribo, Ifeanyi (Udeze) hitting the ball more because there was no attack. But why was there no attack? Because the coach decided that it must be Yakubu Aiyegbeni. But Akwuegbu is a laid back boy who will not talk and Aiyegbeni, my geography tells me, is from the Etsako area of Edo State very close to where I come from and also the area Amodu comes from. Could there have been geography?
For the World Cup, it is so simple. If you want us to succeed at the World Cup, the first thing to do is to open a data base of Nigerian footballers. Where they are, who they are, what they do, where they play. You must also make it competitive. Not a man carrying his bag in Paris, France, knowing that he must play whether he arrives late or not. Camp opened on December 28. On December 29, Okocha left Lagos for his village. So that is the way it goes. Nigeria's best striker was not taken to Mali. They took names. Agali because he is an Agali, he played in Olympic 2000. So 2002, it must be the same Agali scoring for Nigeria. No. James Obiora scored 14 goals to help Lokomotiv Moscow qualify for next year's Champions League. When you get to that level, you want to have a look-in at such a player. Nobody called him. Bartholomew Ogbeche from nowhere is playing for PSG, causing PSG to transfer Nicholas Anelka. But Amodu perhaps because he wanted space for somebody in that team, he closed his eyes to these other boys. We know why this thing happened. We know how it happened. Don't forget that Ikpeba was chosen ahead of Oruma if not that (Ifejiagwa) Emeka got injured. Like Paul Bassey said on AIT, this thing has shown that journalists do a good job. We just don't criticize We all kept shouting, Ikpeba is not fit, Ikpeba is not the man, he has only played for 15 minutes this season but they said we were all kicking against the man. They saw it now.
So, for the World Cup, the first step is to... Look around. Some of us will do it free of charge-information on players. You must have assess to the internet to know those who are good and those who are not good.
There was no discipline because indiscipline started from the top. When the sports minister starts playing the role of NFA chairman, what do you call that? A sports minister will leave his portfolio in Abuja and go and sit down in camp with players, sharing money, giving them match bonus. So, this is one of the things we are talking about. Ogbemudia gave him a report, why didn't he come out with it? Ogbemudia's committee came out with some recommendations, let us see what they were.
Amodu is not even the most brilliant of our local coaches. So, for the World Cup, we can hire a foreigner for three months to work and then get a Nigerian whose job will be to do the screening with a select few of about three or four people. So, at every point in time, because the foreigner will not know where players are. So, if you get three or four people who can stake everything, then the Nigerian coach will now pick the players and give to the foreigner to know the people to select from. That is the only way out and that is the only way forward. The other alternative is to leave Amodu and say he has learnt from his mistakes. History has also shown us that some do not apply what they learnt from so-called mistakes. Why would you think that Amodu would suddenly stop being vindictive? Why would you think that Amodu who was on the same platform with Okocha and Oliseh will suddenly start drawing a line between him and the players? In fact, when a man is at the end of the road, he is at the end of the road, let him go on foot. It's as simple as that. Now we have a very serious goal keeping problem. All Nigeria needs to do now is to look in the direction of Demola Bankole who conceded four goals, because now, he has overcome that problem and is still playing first division football. So, he is still playing regularly. Then look in the direction of South Africa where we still have some keepers. Then look in the direction of the local league, pick two goalkeepers now and go to England to get Arsene Wenger or any good coach that loves Africa and attach the goalkeepers to Arsenal or any English team for two or three months. Let them just train with those teams to remove the inferiority complex in them.(ACONS)
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