By Ben Efe
Eagles ’ coach, Lars
Lagerback, has urged
Nigerians to accept
that the players who
made his tentative list
for the World Cup are
the best the country
has to offer at the
moment.
Lagerback
The coach was reacting
against the backdrop of
criticisms that his list
did not depart from the
order whichwas
established by sacked
coach Shaibu Amodu at
the Angola 2010
Nations Cup.
“Those players were
selected based on their
current form. The
players were not
imposed on me by the
Nigeria Football
Association. They are
the best that we have
available at the
moment, ” said the
Swede who is to have
his baptism of fire with
the Eagles in a friendly
against Saudi Arabia on
May 25 in London.
Nigeria Football
Association boss, Sanni
Lulu, said that the list
was down to coach
Lagerback, adding that
he has the support of
the association.
“He has a CD of all the
players and he has
watched them play
before he submitted
his initial list of 44.
“ In the last two or
three weeks he had
made effort to
assemble the boys but
that was not possible, ”
he said. He also has
another option of going
round to get detailed
information about the
players, ” Lulu said.
Lulu added that the
Eagles will start their
preparations on May 20
in London with games
against the Saudis and
Colombia on May 25,
before jetting out to
South Africa to play
North Korea

i dont know why nigerians have a problem understanding this. everybody is talking about changin the players amodu used in the afcon but is the new coach supposed to manifacture quality players? mikel is not the best player in the world in his position but he is nigerias best player in his position same goes for all others. as simple as.

Posted on: Yesterday at 11:10:40 PM Posted by: Kgdavid

i dont know why nigerians have a problem understanding this. everybody is talking about changin the players amodu used in the afcon but is the new coach supposed to manifacture quality players? mikel is not the best player in the world in his position but he is nigerias best player in his position same goes for all others. as simple as.

You are absolutely correct,we have to use what we have,within the time we have.Which one is all this talk of Amoudu's boys,what matters is how they are deployed and utilized.Taking a good look at the 30 players choosen by Lagerback tells you he knows what he is doing,take for instance Shittu-he's not playing since after the cup of nation is not because he is a bad player,his coach simply has a beef with him,but Lagerback saw what i saw in him naturally,determination,experience and hardwork,we need that in the middle of the defence.

precisely bro. i mean if anyone can be naive enough to call this team "amodu's team" then berti vogts has every right to call it his team. within the last 5-6 years nigerian has called on roughly the same set of 23 players with 2-3 minor changes. heck the same 3 goalkeepers have been in the squad for the better part of a decade! what claim does amodu have to calling this his team? is he the one that made them footballers? its like saying steve mclaren can call the england team his team after all capello still selected rooney, gerrard, lampard, terry, ferdinand, cole etc, they are using roughly the same set of players but with vastly different results. thats what we should be watching out for.

you guys are not serious. if lagerback actually watched the tape of nigeria team, then yakubu,utaka should not be in this team.

I am not okay with the inclusion of Danny Shittu and John Utaka. John Utaka should have been dropped for Eneramo IMO. I have never liked the way Shittu plays and on top that, he is match rusty.

first understand that this is not the final list. secondly a player like john utaka has been going through a very bad patch in his career but he has picked up form in the last two months or so. he is in the squad to prove whether he still has the ability to deliver and that judgment will be made by a coach who knows his football better than you and i. utaka remains for me the most technically sound option for our right flank. as of now all we have on the right flank are players of limited skill and pace who just run with the ball for 3 metres and then pass. utaka can bring something different with his crossing ability. danny Shittu for all his skill deficiency remains one of Nigeria's top three defenders. i cannot recall ever seeing Shittu put in a bad performance for Nigeria. as yobo appears to be in the gradient of his career, i can only point my fingers at the younger duo of Apam and Adeleye as being better than Shittu. Afolabi is good but not quite as good as the aforementioned. Yakubu has been poor as well in recent times but i feel that on the basis of the ability this man has shown in the past, he deserves a chance to prove that he can still deliver at the top level. to me yakubu's problem might be attitudinal but on his day that guy is not a joke. Michael Eneramo is one i feel sorry for as he has the hunger to play for Nigeria. However he is simply not good enough! His touch on the ball and control are really poor and not up to the level we expect of a super eagles striker. His strong points which are his physical strenght and arial presence in the box are very useful but we have better players who can deliver the same in the person of Yakubu and Victor Anichebe. Anichebe in particular is very similar to Eneramo in the sense that both are very physical centre forwards. Anichebe to me would be a better choice because technically he has all the attributes that Eneramo lacks. His control is miles better and though he does not really have dribbling skills he is an attacking threat. Add to this the fact that Anichebe already has years of premier league Experience and Michael Eneramo really has no case to be in the team.

John shittu? debatable, John Utaka, a no no, he's a -1, why picked utaka when you have emerano/Ahmed musa?

why are you guys hyping up ahmed musa?

would you call a player that scored 15 times in a league like Nigerian league an overhyped player?

i bet you won't score 2 chances out of 10 in our league if you intend to play there.

you mean before or after i bribe the referee .

he needs a few seasons of consistency before getting all this praise.