Let Siasia Be —Tayo Ogunbiyi

Gradually, the reality is beginning to dawn on Nigerians that the national team, the Super Eagles, will not be taking part at the next edition of the African Cup of Nations to be held in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in January 2012. However, as hurting as this reality is to millions of soccer loving Nigerians, I will like to give a word of caution, especially as it has to do with the on-going call in several quarters for the sack of the current chief coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia. It is true that the practice, world over, is for a coach to either resign or be sacked whenever his team fails but in this particular case one will like to advice that the nation’s football administrators tread softly. Making Siasia or other individuals the scapegoats will not solve the problem. There is a need to search deeper in our quest for the way forward rather than looking for an escape route. If we choose to, we could sack Siasia thereby making the aggrieved soccer fans in the country happy but our journey into soccer oblivion will continue unabated.

For the avoidance of doubt, the gradual slide of the country into soccer oblivion did not just start today. It began years ago. The Super Eagles couldn’t go beyond the quarter final of the last edition of the African Nations Cup held in Angola. In 2002, the same team, under the tutelage of the revered coach Adegboye Onigbinde, couldn’t go beyond the first round of the Japan/Korea World Cup. To make matters worse, the super Eagles in Japan/Korea could only manage to score one goal having lost its first two matches against Argentina and Sweden respectively. It could only manage a face saving barren draw with England in its last match. At the France 1998 World Cup, the team also had a disastrous outing losing 4-1 to Denmark in the second round. Aside the Super Eagles, almost all the nation’s national teams have been experiencing dwindling fortunes in recent times. The national U-20 side, the Flying Eagles, which in the 80s and early 90s used to monopolise the U-20 championship in Africa has since lost its grip on the competition. Indeed, it got so bad that the team did not qualify for the 2009 edition of the U-20 World Cup. With regards to the U-17 side, the story is not different. It was so bad that the team did not qualify for the last editions of the U-17 World Cup and the Africa U-17 African championship respectively. It is also on record that the country did not qualify for the soccer events of the last All Africa Games held in Maputo, Mozambique. The female national teams have not fared better either. At present, the qualification of the national female team, the Super Falcons, to the football event of the next summer Olympic Games to be held in London hangs in the balance. In fact, it got so bad for female soccer in the country that the national female team did not qualify for the soccer events of the recently concluded 2011 All Africa Games in, Maputo, Mozambique.

The reality that Nigerians don’t want to accept is that the country is no longer a force to be reckoned with in football be it in Africa or the world at large. We are only living on past glory. We have lost it long ago. Sadly, the fans and the administrators have been shying away from this reality. When was the last time that a Nigerian footballer won the African Footballer of the Year Award? Or better still, when was the last time that our footballers got nominated into the top 10 ranked African best footballers? There was a time when Nigerian footballers were the toasts of the soccer world. Then, we used to have up to six nominees among the ten footballers usually nominated for the annual African Footballer of the Year Award. Indeed, the high point of the country’s dominance in African football was when Rashidi Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke, Victor Ikpeba and Kanu Nwankwo won the title in successive order. In those days, our footballers were plying their trade in top European sides such as Arsenal in England, Ajax of Amsterdam, Barcelona in Spain, Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan in Italy respectively among others. Today, the country cannot boast of a footballer playing in any top flight European club. Last Season, our best player in Europe was Osaze Odewemgie who, sadly though, plies his trade with relegation threatened lowly West Brom of England.

Like the story of the degeneration of other segments of the country, our passage to extinction in football started when we decided to allow over-aged players to represent the country in age grade competitions. Spanish players such as Ike Casillas, Xavi, Iniesta among others represented Spain when Nigeria hosted the U-20 World Cup in 1999. Today, they form the bedrock of their country’s national team which won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. In contrast, however, Joseph Yobo, the current captain of the Super Eagles, is the only surviving member of the Nigerian 1999 U-20 team that is still relevant to the national team. While other countries use age grade competitions to invest in the future of their football, we always want to win at all costs by cutting corners. The poor organisation of the local league is equally responsible for the poor state of football in the country. Gone are the days when football fans used to be crazy about the local league. Presently, the national football league has been on a prolonged break as the board saddled with overseeing the league has been enmeshed in an unending bitter leadership tussle . And there seems to be no end in sight for the resolution of several other conflicts rocking the board. This is why some of our footballers travel to less known footballing nations such as Bangladesh, Sudan, India among others to further their careers. Aside this, the Challenge Cup, now Confederation Cup, that used to be a glamorous national soccer event has since lost its glamour.

The neglect of grassroots football is equally responsible for the abysmal performance of our national teams . Ajegunle, a prominent Lagos suburb, is renowned to be a famous breeding ground of budding footballers in the country. You can imagine how many Ajegunles exist across the country and how many potential soccer stars in such places are rotting away. Similarly, the abandonment of school sports competitions such as NUGA, Principal Cup, Manuwa Adebajo Soccer Championships among others have is also partly accountable for the decline of our national teams.

The implication of the foregoing is that the problem of the national team is a more complicated one. A simplistic approach such as sacking a coach and hiring a new one will just be like scratching the surface. Imagine where we would have been if we had allowed coach Onigbinde to continue his rebuilding process after the disastrous outing in Japan/Korea 2002 World Cup. Since then, we have hired and sacked numerous foreign and local coaches but the problem has persisted. Sacking Siasia will not change anything. He had started a process that we should allow him to finish. Clemens Westerhof, perhaps the most successful Super Eagles coach, spent five years on the job before he could give us the superb 1994 team and on the way to achieving that he lost the vital qualifying match against Cameroun which ensured that we missed the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy. Let Siasia be. If we manage the current setback very well we might, perhaps, be on the road to soccer glory again!

•Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.