Dalung ate our today, Dare our tomorrow: Talking points from Super Eagles’ ouster  

It has been a cacophony of hot airs and scratching of the surface analysis since Our Boys were beaten on Tuesday to the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup ticket by Ghana. OLUKAYODE THOMAS posits that we need a deep understanding of the problems of football, nay sports, to understand the way forward. 

Buhari’s government has no plan for youths: Education, entertainment, and sports are the most potent tools for getting youths out of poverty anywhere in the world. Out of the three, sports is the most amenable because of its easy access and it’s less expensive.

After about seven years in office, it is crystal clear that Muhammadu Buhari’s government has no plan for our youths. Entertainment is in disarray, education is in comatose, while sports is in the morgue. After seven years of Change dole fa.

Solomon Dalung ate our today, Sunday Dare is eating our tomorrow: If Dalung had started an elite athlete development program in 2015 and Dare had continued from where he stopped, 80 per cent of the boys that played for us on Tuesday would not be anywhere near our bench. Instead of the duo initiating and nurturing a National Sports Development program that will revive sports at the local, state and national levels,  their interest was and still is in promotional events like the Olympics, Commonwealth Games,  African Games and major championships which are strictly the affairs of Nigeria Olympics Committee (NOC) and Sports Federations. Dare even insulted our intelligence with his Abridged Principal Cup. Walahi yeye dey smell everywhere 

Don’t blame Pinnick, he can’t give what he does not have: The ‘eleventh commandment of Moses read, ‘Blessed are the hopeless for they won’t be disappointed. From the moment Amaju Pinnick climbed on the back of Vanguard sports pages to national and international prominence he has always been a nearly-man or an indomie noddle man. He didn’t leave any legacy as head of Delta FA or Executive Chairman of Delta State Sports Commission despite having access to human and material resources due to his relationship with Delta State Governor then.  Pinnick did not take Warri Wolves anywhere, nor achieve any noteworthy feat in over a decade. In a country where rewarding failures is a tradition, we entrusted a man that cannot run a corner shop called Warri Wolves with a giant supermarket called NFF and we expect him to perform magic, Pinnick’s name may start with P but he is not a sibling of Professor Peller.

Shehu Dikko the killer of the league: One of the powers and principalities killing football in Nigeria. Dikko has been around football forever with only a comatose league to show for his longevity. If he had given us a good league we will probably have a strong football economy and thousands of great footballers in Nigeria whose careers died abruptly would have been on the global stage competing in the best football leagues in the world. Despite Dikko’s abysmal failures, he is still a darling of the sporting press. There was even a match between Friends of Dikko and SWAN (Sports Writers Association of Nigeria) on Monday before Ghana gave us Yoyo Bitters on Tuesday which led to our players losing an important match and fans destroying MKO Abiola Stadium.

Patch patch no dey last: Pinnick’s idea of building our football does not align with what makes Brasil, Argentina, Germany, France and other great football countries giants in the game, development of a system that will unearth talents in all the nooks and crannies of their country and make them world-beaters.

For Pinnick, football development starts and ends with combing Europe and other parts of the world for Nigerians in the diaspora who cannot make the team of their country of birth to wear the green white green.

So if these countries have abandoned football development like us, where will Pinnick get players to poach? We want to compete against the best in the world and our best are players who were rejected by their country of birth after they failed at the youth level. One does not need to be a follower of Nostradamus to know that with the Pinnick formula we will fail as we did in Abuja on Tuesday. 

Fire brigade approach: Like in everything we do it is always lastminute.com. A thinking government does not need a seer to know that Abuja with its security challenges and location of the stadium is not the best place for a football today nor does it need to be told that once something is free in Nigeria, urchins take over.  But because Dare want to showcase a stadium that a private sector person just renovated they move the match to Abuja. To ensure the stadium was filled, the gates were thrown open and there were free buses. Genuine and responsible football fans stayed away and urchins who probably would not be anywhere near the stadium if the match had been played with premium gate fees in Lagos, Benin, Asaba, Kano and Ibadan took over. Dare need not waste taxpayers’ money on a needless probe, ineptitude of the Sports Ministry and NFF caused the riot.

Resigned or Sacked Austin Eguavoen and Co must not come near our national teams again: Thank God Austin Eguavoen and his crew has been sacked or they resigned. But the truth is they should not have been there in the first place. Eguavoen has never recorded any success as a coach. Amunike won the U-17 but winning the junior cup or qualifying Tanzania for Nations Cup is not criteria to coach the Eagles. I remember when Fanny Amu won the U-17 in 1993 and he was promoted to Flying Eagles- Amu and his boys fumbled and wobbled. Paul Aigbogun? His inclusion shows that we are jokers. Terry Eguoje only God knows where Pinnick exhumes him from. Salisu Yusuf, haba, are we beret of shame? After the BBC scandal, this guy ought not to be near green white green again. Joseph Yobo- has the potential to coach anywhere but he needs to crawl before flying. 

Amunike as future coach: Don’t be shocked if in two months sports journalists start packaging Emmanuel Amunike as the best man to lead the Eagles. The argument will be that Eguavoen did not give him a free hand and all that stuff. Once they start pushing Amunike USP remind them about the resume of the Ghana technical crew. Chris Hughton has coached about five premier league clubs, Otto Addo is an assistant coach with Bundesliga giant Borussia Dortmund and George Boateng is an assistant coach with Aston Villa. Tell them only coaches with better resumes can coach the Eagles.

Gernot Rohr would have qualified us:  Arrant nonsense. Just like saying we should have not replaced clueless Goodluck Jonathan with Muhammadu Buhari because Buhari has now turned out to be another Jonathan. Rohr was a failure and deserved to be sacked, that Eguavoen failed does not mean the decision to sack Rohr was not good but it simply means we should continue our search for the best man for the job. 

We need a coach: Local or foreign, we need a coach who is not only tactically sound but wants to leave a legacy. Apart from Finidi George, the two other guys that have the carriage for the Super Eagles job are Seyi Olofinjana and Sunday Oliseh. The latter is brash and impatient but you can’t take away his strong personality and tactic knowledge. He must have learned a lesson from his first stint on the job which ended abruptly. 

Ahmed Fresh and Eguavoen: The technical committee chairman and technical director of any football federation are the brain box of the federation. Pinnick’s choice of Ahmed Yusuf Fresh is dumbfounding. Fresh has zero pedigree as a football player or manager. His only qualification for the job according to insinuations is his ability to lockdown the Northern delegate votes for Pinnick. Unconfirmed reports say he was nicknamed Fresh because he supplies clients with Fresh Meat. That is Pinnick’s choice to be our Technical Committee Chairman- We joke too much in this country. 

Eastern Europe: Yes we need a coach but we don’t need those recycled failures like the one that Pinnick brought to replace Rohr. If we comb Eastern Europe and even Germany and Holland, we will get good coaches that will not cost us the whole world. There are guys who are hungry for success, who will live here and watch our league, assist with youth development and sports science. 

Don’t blame the players, blame those who turned the national team to cash and carry: Based on our players’ performances at the Afcon and World Cup qualifiers about 95% of the players wearing the green/white/green today have no business in the national team but rather than blame the players, blame NFF officials and coaches that give our shirt to the highest bidder.

VAR and tactical: If you don’t know what is called tactical in Nigerian football then you are a beginner. Did VAR kill tactical? Would the referee have gboju and allowed Victor Osimhen’s goal if not for VAR.? An inside in NFF told me our past qualification was due to tactical. If you know you know.

Sporting press as part of the problem: My constituency the sporting media has also abandoned their oversight function to be part of the problem. We have Minister’s writers, Pinnick boys, Dikko friends, those working for players and agents. At a recent match in Lagos, a senior colleague express his worry about the way our reporters have to press assistants for players. 

Pinnick’s pettiness also cost us the World Cup ticket: Pinnick can be petty even at the expense of the nation. Imagine a top elite football team, national team or football club, without a sports psychology, impossible you will say. There is an NFF staff who is a top sports psychologist whose immense contribution helped Stephen Keshi average players win the 2013 Afcon. A former captain of the national volleyball team, a star player for Leventis United in the golden age of Nigeria football, and a PHD holder. This solid guy would have helped Eguavoen with managing the team. Pinnick is fully aware of what he can bring to the national team but he does not just to see him. It’s unknown if he snatched Pinnick’s girlfriend or Pinnick snatched his girlfriend. The same question should be asked why he shut the door of the national team against Vincent Enyeama and prefers Alloy Agu.

Pinnick’s third-term ambition? Don’t bet against it:  After a month or two don’t be surprised if football stakeholders and the sporting press start clamouring for a third term for Pinnick so that he completes his good works-so that we won’t lose his contacts in FIFA and CAF. Impossible? If failed governors, lawmakers and others can come back with inducement, why not Pinnick.

Going forward: For us to be among the top five football nations in the world by 2033 we need a President that understands the power of sports and football from May 2023, we need a football and sports economy, we need 20 elite clubs not owned by the state governments, we need a functional league that will enable us to assess coaches, football development at primary schools, secondary, and tertiary levels. We need community football and many more. For a country where football is not just a religion but a vehicle out of poverty these are not too much to ask. 

Expecting Buhari, Dare, Pinnick and their co-travellers to achieve any of the above is like relying on PHCN for power supply.