The Way Forward For Super Eagles

  Loss to Ghana embarrassing – Onigbinde
By Tunde Odesola, Osogbo
Published: Thursday, 8 Feb 2007

Former Super Eagles Coach, Adegboye Onigbinde, has described the team’s 4-1 loss to Ghana on Tuesday evening in London as a national embarrassment.
Onigbinde Speaking with our correspondent in a telephone interview on Wednesday, the CAF and FIFA instructor said the defeat had demystified the country’s soccer.
He explained that Nigeria, within the last decade, had won matches on past glory and the respect other African countries gave the players.The tactician urged the football authorities to work around the clock to stem the dwindling fortunes of Nigerian football.He said, “We are in for trouble. Other African countries will come after us now. Is our football progressing or not? This is the same Ghana that had not beaten us for more than a decade.“As the coach of the national team, I defeated Black Stars on their home soil 3–0 in October, 1983 and my team went on to defeat the same team in March, 1984 2–1 during the Olympic qualifier.”Onigbinde blamed the loss on the non-availability of a developmental programme for the national teams, adding that Nigeria Football Association should maintain standing national teams at all levels.
He explained that some key players, worldwide, form the nucleus of their national teams, stressing that the country should have home-based players that would be part of the team, whose camp should run all though the year.The tactician decried the situation wereby players are called from their foreign bases when a match or competition approaches, stressing that it was pertinent for the country to have a team, whose nucleus would be formed by readily available players.He said, “We had no team hence the task of assessing the team does not arise. All other African countries are moving up in terms of infrastructure and technical depth while we are sliding down.“What sense is it when a country has a coach, who is paid per annum and all such a coach does is play 10 matches in a year? What we need is a team that would be engaged all-year round and a technical department that would imbue our talents with technical depth.”

  I truly go with what this man feels.I think we need home based Eagles too as that our foreign players will be up and doing.Its sad though to know that out of millions of players we depend on a selected few to move us forward when we have thousands hoping to do the job.If you watch the local league u will know dey r good players there who jst need exposure.Siasia did it with flying eagles by taking home based players(majority)and they showed the world what they are made of.How can Eguaveon blame the loss on Martins and co when there is Victor Ezeji in Dolphins and a host of others.Well this should better serve as an eye opener to all the sport administrators in the Country.

  We also need a new board that actually knows what sports is all about.Am really scared though because if we continue like this *********************************.

What y'all think?