There is never been a time when Nigeria as a country needs to look inwards to appoint an indigenous coach for the Super Eagles job as now.
Since after the expiration of the contract of the last foreign manager in charge of the team, Jose Peseiro, after the African Cup of Nations tournament in Cote d’ Ivoire, the Eagles have been without a substantive gaffer, as Finidi George is only there on interim arrangement.
There have been some air of uncertainty as regarding where the plum job will tilt particularly given the fact that the country’s football authorities from history has always favoured foreign managers ahead of indigenous managers.
But it may interest you to note that whatever the foreign managers have been able to achieve for the country trophy wise, the indigenous managers have equalled, yet they continued to be neglected or ignored.
The argument now is: why should Nigeria continue to pay hundreds of thousands to employ or engage a foreign manager when indigenous coaches can guarantee same results, especially now that the NFF is having limited funds and could barely afford such humongous wages as demanded by foreign managers.
The NFF could not pay Peseiro while he was here until the president of Nigeria, Ahmed Bola Tinubu picked or settled his wages shortly before the commencement of AFCON.
There are many sides to the argument. While some believe that getting an indigenous coach for the Eagles is not the best for the team, some others are of the opinion that Nigeria has many coaches who are qualified enough to tinker the team.
There’s the school of thought that say local coaches are usually sentimental, corrupt, incompetent both technically and tactically, another believe foreign coaches are gold diggers who barely develop football in the country but are more interested in the fat pay other than the interest, growth and development of the round leather game.
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However, the writer of this piece believes that Nigeria at this point will be better off engaging an indigenous coach instead of a foreign coach except if the foreign manager can assure Nigerians of winning the world cup.
Otherwise, what is the essence of spending or lavishing thousands of Dollars which is not even there on a foreign manager that can’t do more than the indigenous coaches have done or achieved.
Otto Gloria won the 1980 AFCON while Clemence Westerhof won the 1994 AFCON and also qualified Nigeria for her first world cup in 1994. Johannes Bonfrere won the Olympic football gold medal for the country in
1996, all achieved by the foreign managers.
But late Stephen Okechukwu Keshi did also win the AFCON in 2013 for Nigeria and also qualified the country for the world cup in 2014 where the Eagles exited in the second round just like in 1994 under Westerhof. Samson Siasia won the Olympic football Silver medal in 2008 and a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics to underline that indigenous coaches are no push overs and can do even much more if given same conditions as are availed to the foreign managers.
