Sports CHAN 16 Failure - How Long Will Nigerians Endure Mediocrity?

It is no doubt and its a fact that the question on the lips of every passionate Nigerians about our dear Super eagles would be, How much longer do Nigerians have to endure the marriage of convenience between the Nigerian Football Federation's president, Amaju Pinnick, and his close ally, Sunday Oliseh, (Guardiola of Africa)?

The wedding which was consummated at the media centre of the national stadium in Abuja on July 15, 2015, has began to bear unfortunate fruits - detrimental to passionate Nigerians.

The duo were reported to have met a few times in London, this made a lot of us believe the NFF had opened a liaison office in the United Kingdom, a claim which was later confirmed by the federation through a press statement.

While the holy matrimony was going on, in a bid for the groom - Amaju Pinnick to express his excitement for the newly hired Super Eagles coach, he called Oliseh the Guardiola of Africa which has turned out to be an insult to the respected Bayern Munich coach - Pep Guardiola.

We understood that Pep Guardiola had no top team experience before taking charge of the Catalans, we cannot also but take into cognisance the fact that the Spaniard was promoted from coaching the Barcelona B team to managing the top European club side.

And, in the space of four years, the coach had won virtually everything in club football before moving away from the Spanish league for the German bundesliga.

The Super Eagles Team 'B' failed to progress to the knock-out stage of the ongoing African Nations Championship in Rwanda after losing 1-0 to Guinea in their third Group C game, a match which just one point would have seen them through.

Before that game on Tuesday, Nigeria led group C with four points, while Tunisia and Guinea were level on two points and Niger sat at the bottom of the table with just one.

Ironically, after ninety minutes, the first became almost the last as Tunisia and Guinea qualified ahead of Nigeria, with both teams beating Niger and Nigeria 5-0 and 1-0 respectively.

What is outstanding in this situation is the fact that Amaju Pinnick was the first to apologise to Nigerians for the failure of the Eagles, led by Sunday Oliseh to progress beyond the group stage.

And I wondered, why didn't Amaju Pinnick apologise on Stephen Keshi's behalf when he failed to qualify for AFCON in 2015 at Equitorial Guinea, but all they wanted was his scalp, even at the intervention of some higher officials in the country.

Pinnick tried to play down on the magnitude of Oliseh's failure at a tournament, which could have at least, boosted Nigeria's chances of rising in the FIFA ranking early next month by saying that the NFF will now focus on the remaining 2017 AFCON qualifiers, of which a two-legged affair has been scheduled against Egypt for March 2016.

It is obvious we (myself and some other Nigerians) don't know what Oliseh's Super Eagles contract says, but I'm sure we didn't appoint another Lars Lagerback, who would spend one month in Nigeria and three month in Belgium.

Well, I think this is also worthy of mention, because I'm still not sure the rationale behind the friendly games staged in Belgium - Oliseh's base.

I've heard from grapevine that the test games against Cameroon and Congo were used to launder money, but, let's say that was wrong, should this NFF administration dance to Guardiola of Africa's tune all the time?

Why really did the NFF had to take those friendly games to Belgium for the very first time in the history of the national team under Oliseh as head coach? I'll leave you to figure that out.

Well, I think enough of Pinnick at this point so that we don't leave this important aspect of the issue untouched.

It is obvious that our dear Super Eagles coach, Sunday Oliseh, does not have prior experience to this job, he also will not stop shooting himself in the leg with his utterances.

At his inauguration as the head coach of the Nigerian national team, Oliseh said he won't invite players who are not playing in the top league to the Eagles team, an unrealistic promise.

Second, the Guardiola of Africa said he will surpass Stephen Keshi's last CHAN records (winning bronze medal) another promise not kept, and not taking away the discord he brought to the team when he arrived.

Just over there in Rwanda, his managerial skill was on the hot seat again when he benched Sunshine Star's striker, Tunde Adeniji against Tunisia, just after Abia Warriors Chisom Chikatara bagged a hat-trick against Niger.

Would that have helped Adeniji's confidence going into the next game, I'm sure your guess is as good as mine, but all the same, the young man sat on the bench for 90 minutes in that game.

One major thing Oliseh failed to realise is that the tournament would have boosted our FIFA ranking in the next edition, had we gone far in Rwanda, but unfortunately, we risk being drawn in the same group with other African powers when the world cup qualifiers draws will be made.

Few things we learnt in Rwanda:
Oliseh's team had no tactical play, just like Keshi was accused, but the Big Boss was able to achieve result with his 'so-called' tacticless team, unlike what we have now.

The boys seem too heavy they couldn't carry themselves.

They also seem to had been consumed by stage fright as they only manage to score four goals against the smallest team in the group.

There was no sense of urgency and immediacy in the team.

There was just one shot on target that the goalkeeper parried in their last group game which was an indictment on the strikers he fielded.

They triumphed against smaller opposition but chickened out when tougher opposition came calling.

Finally, we would like to inform Mr. Amaju Pinnick, and the Super Eagles manager, Sunday Oliseh that passionate Nigerians deserve more than just apologies for their incapabilities to achieve results.

As such, in a more civilised world, what follows such abysmal performance will be to resign honourably from positions held, and we are advising both Pinnick and Oliseh to take follow that honourable path...
@TomiwaBabalola
 

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