₦airaland Forum

reporting for duty boss

have to say in a long time i haven't seen an invitation list that i'm satisfied with like this. only comma for me is igiebor. he's not even our best player in israel unlike john ogu (hmm NFF official/godfather things )

i like your lineup very attack minded but i would rather we adopt a cautious approach. this is zambia we are talking about and an away match for that matter. i say we go with a 3 man midfield i.e mikel and 2 of esiti\onazi\ndidi. success will drop to the bench for the first half so we go with a forward 3 of iheanacho, V. Moses and iwobi. mikel will join in attack as situation demands. like a 4-2-1-3 formation. once we have controlled the tempo of the game and the zambians initial gra gra fizzles out then we can unleash success and musa on them then switching to a more attacking 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 formation.

rohr should also pull the ear of moses and iwobi and preach to them the gospel of always tracking back to help your full backs. also someone should wrap a chain with an anchor around onazi's waist (if he gets to start) and plant it in our half so he won't venture beyond the half way line.

very optimistic a win is achievable with this squad

TheGoodJoe:
I propose we go with a 4-3-3 formation. An attacking line up with three forwards.

----------------------------------Carl Ikeme(GK)----------------------------------------
---------------------Ekong(CB)----------------Balogun(CB)------------------
M. Mohammed(RB)----------------------------------------------------Echiejile(LB)
----------------------------------------Onazi(DMF)----------------------------------------------
-------------------Iwobi(CMF/AMF)-------------Mikel(CMF/AMF)-----------------
---------------V. Moses(SS)-------------------------------------------Success(SS)
-------------------------------------------Iheanacho(CF)----------------------------------

Left back is a challenge for me because I do not trust Echiejile's crosses and tracking back. I put his name there because of his experience and I have not watched much of Madu's defending.

A lot of us hurled criticism at V. Moses because of his stingy play. However, he can become an asset with more license to attack. Instead of sticking to the flanks to cross and pass, a combination of three skillful strikers will bring out the best in Moses. We will see them exchange brilliantly close to goal and cause Zambia problems.

Mikel and Iwobi have the duty of disciplined play and key passes to unlock the opponents defence.

Onazi must stick to his disciplined play as he did against Tanzania. The setup is offensive and a stable defensive midfielder is crucial to prevent counter attacks.

Rohr should reduce the forward play of Echiejile to reduce the work he does to track back. Onazi should fill gaps.

cc: Icon4s, tbaba1234, TheSuperNerd, lakesidepapa, safarigirl, Joseph1013, confun, goldfish80, Mickael2, forgiveness, chrisooblog, lexyman, amagunnerfan, zicky, HZwriters, bigblangston etc.

mikel had an amazing tournament no doubt but my personal pick would me Victor Moses. guy was a terror to any defence we faced. no suprises all the games he featured in we won. pitriopa had a good tournament but he wasn't the best.

TheGoodJoe:

Same thing that came to my mind. Maybe because I said I value those in the spine of the defence more than pure offensive players, they want to talk dazzling.

If we want to talk dazzling, then Moses takes it hands down.

I remember Oliseh not allowing anyone hear anything in Super Sports studio. He kept pointing out how Moses gave us repeated entrance into the opponents defence.

It was a great tournament for Nigerian football. A lot of awesome players including Mba.

i'm not 100% sold on azubuike but if during training he impresses then no problem as long as the team is improved.

Mickael2:
aren't you going to consider Azubuike at all for that game? I understand your point exactly, you want us to play with caution but don't you think that the present condition that they are in can afford us the oppurtunity to not only win but to do so handsomely? I would prefer that Etebo-Mikel-Ndidi combination(with Azubuike replacing Ndidi for me) or we could add a true winger to replace Iwobi on the left and push him into the middle too, with him providing the assist, Iheanacho converting those assists and Mikel setting the tempo of the game, God have mercy on the Zambians

hi jhswe how's the pidgin translation coming along? nice view there which part of sweden are you based?

he was saying that i had already answered your question before he came back. he was also asking what kind of currency you guys use plus if it's true that your country has some of the finest women in the world

jhswe:
Yes, I got help from chrisooblog really quickly. But I still have a hard time understanding you ... For now, at least.

---

Greetings from Sweden, where summer still lingers: 16–18°C (61–65°F) and days are getting shorter and shorter.

ok apologies if i misunderstood you. although you did suggest that balogun should be shifted to RB as an emergency alternative for musa mohammed which i don't agree with. shehu or even onazi can play that role. Balogun is our best CB for now let him continue and build himself in that position.

Icon4s:
I never said that.

i'm not comfortable with us dropping balogun for omeruo or shifting him to the RB position. at this moment leon is our most inform defender let's make good use him now in his natural position.

omeruo for some reason hasn't been at his best these past years but he would still edge it for me to partner balogun in center of defence due to his experience however ekong has shown enough IMO that he would be better than omeruo in the long run.

Icon4s:
Raheem is more of a box to box midfielder and if invited it would be to boost our CMF options.

I would pick Ndidi ahead of Azubuike but Onazi remains my first choice DMF for this campaign. He (Onazi) is a very experienced campaigner on the African soil. He has also been very consistent in his Turkish club this season. He may just be instructed to cut his unnecessary forward over-lapping moves just like in the Tanzania game. He and Mikel have formed a very good partnership for many years now and we need to really exploit that advantage especially in our first two games (vs Zambia and vs Algeria). We have little or no time to experiment various midfield combos before those two games.

No qualms in replacing Omeruo with Balogun on your list. But I want to iterate the fact that Omeruo remains a valuable asset in the thick of that defense. Ekong may be getting more approval ratings from fans compared to Omeruo due to the former's involvement in the last Olympics, but you guys should remember that, Omeruo, prio to the Olympics was preferred ahead of Ekong. Also remember the Olympics is an age grade competition. Omeruo has been to the AFCON and World Cup where he faced some of the best oppositions both in Africa and in the world of which you know how he performed.

I still don't think Ekong is better than Omeruo. If Omeruo was also in the Olympics he too could have performed creditably well.

And when was the last time you watched Oshaninwa play?

hi bro yeah i dropped etebo for two main reasons. first i think he's injured secondly etebo is more of an AMF cum striker and for the zambia match i would like someone who can control the tempo of our midfield play. this is where mikel comes in and remember in the olympics he was able to bring some attacking verve into his game. ordinarily if we were playing at home or adopting a more attacking formation then i would drop either of ndidi\onazi for etebo so we would have a midfield three of mikel, etebo and ndidi\onazi. going forward in later matches they could be our default selection but thing is i don't trust onazi to shield the back four on his own since that matuidi challenge in the world cup dude has been off and i haven't seen enough of ndidi to know if he can do the job effectively.

Mickael2:
You are the boss, you have the perfect formation in mind, although Mikel in that position.....don't you think Etebo could be better? I mean Etebo paired with Sadiq yet he scored goals and Sadiq is well Sadiq, so with Nacho more goals will be guaranteed. so I might be thinking about bringing in Etebo and taking Mikel back the the dmf role or he can just be the actual10, that's the borderline between the dmf and the amf. apart from that your formation is great considering the resources we have

i haven't seen much of iwobi in the CMF role but if push comes to shove i reckon he could do a decent job in that position. however i agree he looks very effective playing from the left side of midfield.

iheanacho for me works best with a strike partner like an ideye or etebo.

against zambia being an away match i feel we should go conservative. a double pivot of ndidi/onazi or azubuike to shield the defence with mikel playing an advanced attacking role joining the likes of iwobi and victor moses to assist iheanacho in the forward role. mikel, iwobi and victor moses can then rotate from time to time to join iheanacho in our attacking forays.

my preliminary line-up for the zambia match

ikeme

m. mohammed l. balogun t. ekong e.echejiele


onazi w. ndidi


victor moses mikel iwobi


iheanacho



we will have to be extra cautious on the left side of defence because when i watched bits of zambia's home match against kenya in the AFCON qualifiers i noticed they usually attacked down the left channel. they don't concede much so we will have to be patient to break them down. plus if we see a chance to put them to the sword we should do it because those zambians never give up they will keep coming even if we are a goal ahead.

Mickael2:
I can't stop laughing at this.

Which formation is this? When did Iwobi start playing as a number 10?! There is a big difference between an Amf and a Cmf, a 10 is always a Cmf, an Amf is not called a 10, rather you can even call him a number 8, so Iwobi CANNOT play as a 10 but as a number 8.

If Enyeama comes back, Ikeme should go straight to the stands, sorry I mean bench. Although both will be thesame because Enyeama won't be rested.

So you honestly watched that Man City game and you believe Iheanacho can play as a lone striker? The only two Nigerians now who can play as a lone striker are Ighalo and Ideye, Adi might be able to do it. Iheanacho was literally playing up front with De Bruyne, he never had to play without the ball, there are many types of lone strikers, the lone striker in a 4-3-3 formation is different from that of a 4-5-1 and being able to play one does not equate to being able to play the other. If Nigeria plays a 4-5-1 then Ighalo/Ideye/Adi has to start, Iheanacho can't play that at all, Iheanacho always pulls out to bring his teammates into the game but if he is the only person forward, who is he pulling out for?

Anyways u adopted a 4-4-2 formation which does not require a lone striker or maybe you meant Iheanacho can lead the line, then ofcourse, the only headache is who we are going to play behind him, Iwobi or Etebo. If only Mikel could still play as our Dmf, then we can play both at thesame time with a modified 4-1-3-2, infact we can't play both, so it's a question of who amongs them will play. Iheanacho is a sure goalscoring machine, so if he plays then scoring shouldn't be the problem so what you need is to maintain balance, Iwobi maintains balance more than Etebo but if we want to hammer Zambia for example, then Etebo is the right man.

Besides these, I kinda agree with everything else you said EXCEPT shehu, granted that Musa Mohammed wasn't the best but Shehu? While you are at it why not just bring back Efe Ambrose? For me o, I would shift Leon to that spot and play either Omeruo/Ndidi/Awaziem there. Not to mention that for me, Azubuike already has that Dmf spot reserved for him, so Onazi and Ndidi should look for other positions. Ndidi can play as our backup CB,Onazi can go to RB and be the back-up I don't care

it was yekini go look it up

TheGoodJoe:

Nope. It was Siasia who scored Jamaica. A header. Not Yekini.

That is what I am talking about. You do not care if Siasia was better. As long as our all time leading scorer plays.

No. The best player at that time plays. Not the best past player.

my argument and that of icon is that at present we have a group of players (of which i even included fanendo adi o!) bar one or two good enough to qualify nigeria for the world cup in russia but the goodjoe's argument and others is to invite everyone wether romania based, iraq based, afghanistan based, benin based etc to come to camp so we can then determine who's the best even though we have no time and qualifiers are upon us.

BascoVanVeli:
How did me asking that Adi should given 60 minutes in a friendly bring us to this?

you forget that the 96 team also improved on the 94 set. kanu, babayaro, oruma, taribo west , garba lawal, dosu joseph, mobi oparaku, karibe ojigwe, teslim fatusi etc these were young guys added to the likes of oliseh, amokachi, okocha, akpoborie, amunike, finidi, t. babangida
so where is the lack of competition?

siasia could be dropped because he was nowhere near the team during qualifiers for france 98. i can understand yekini because he's our all time leading scorer and we could give him the benefit of the doubt. besides i remember in the build up to france 98 we played a friendly against jamaica in which yekini scored.

i'm happy you used the spanish example. the core of the team between 2007-2012 cassilas, puyol, xavi, alonso, ineista, fabregas, busquets, ramos etc no suprises they won 1 world cup and 2 euros in that period

the key word you should note is POOL OF TALENTED PLAYERS. any other unknown player who merits being called should be added to the pool but we don't have time to do open camp and be saying ''oya come show yourself'' we have passed that stage

TheGoodJoe:

It has a relation to every thing. As soon as Westerhof went, we stopped competition in places.

There was this term, we had a team. The Atlanta Team was our team. No competition.

Then people wondered how we fell off. It is like Spain holding on to the past. It is like AC Milan holding on to the past. If you hold the team for too long, it causes weaknesses later.

We should not make the same mistake of holding on to how good our players are. They need to have it in their mind, you mess up, you go.

Yekini had no place in France '98. During the Friendlies and Carlsberg Cup, Samson Siasia was the best player. But, we had a Team. Yekini went and did not score once. Missed a glorious chance against Spain.

stability, stability, stability!!!

that's the mantra. for an example of how adding too many players can rock the boat look at the players we took to brazil 2014. ameobi, uchebo, odunlami, michael babatunde. apart from babatunde who did ok the others were complete flops. keshi probably brought them in to freshen up the group but the opposite was achieved. he thought because he got away with it in AFCON 2013 he could do it again and succeed.

Icon4s:
No body says we should stop searching.

We have a pool already. Our primary objective for now should not just be to keep adding to that pool but to screen out the best in that pool and maximize the quality there in. If any untested player is found worthy to be added, let him be invited.

What I am preaching is stability. That is all.

those loses you are mentioning have no corrolation to our present discussion they lost due to poor coaching/tactics not because they were not the best legs that year. oliseh, finidi, okocha, kanu etc were still our best players that year. we can argue that the supporting cast wasn't up to scratch but there weren't any obvious better players at least that i know of.

TheGoodJoe:

By 98, the likes of Okocha, Oliseh and Kanu conceded 5 against Holland in a friendly, four against Denmark in the World Cup. 2002 showed we were too patient, not in a haste.

exactly my point westerhof did a lot of chopping and changing within that period but as much as possible he tried to maintain a steady eleven throughout.

plus that era was a rebuilding period when the super eagles were still discovering talented players. not many nigerian players were in europe so it's not like we had a dossier of nigerian players doing exceptional things in europe.

unlike today bar a few players we know the players we will use to execute the qualifying campaign. all i'm saying is based on merit their are not many players that have been left out if i'm wrong please list them.

tbaba1234:
Amokachi, Adepoju, Iroha and Okechukwu joined the team in 1990.

Many of that home based team were the crust of the Super Eagles for ages.

note i said between 1990 and 1993

tbaba1234:
Finidi joined in 91 .

bro you forget that the 1990 team assembled by westerhof were mostly homebased guys who were mostly not our best legs but chosen to send a message to some of our foreign based players who were misbehaving then. even as of then stalwarts like keshi, yekini, eguavoen, ben iroha, uche uchechukwu, adepoju, alloy agu were sure starters

tbaba1234:
The point is that, the team changed a lot. Some key players in 90 were not key players in 94. Westerhof was not afraid to experiment and try new players.

you talking about between 1990-1993 abi? even at that we knew the spine, keshi, yekini, amokachi, finidi, eguaveon, uche uchechukwu, ben iroha, adepoju before later additions like oliseh, okocha

TheGoodJoe:


You are talking of after Westerhof searched the country for the best in each position. Not before.

there is a too soon. the nigeria team of 2002 we were too much in a haste to get rid of the likes of oliseh, finidi, babangida etc after our poor outing in AFCON 2002. the ones we now took to korea/japan 2002 world cup though talented couldn't meet up.

you remember i drew up a list of players we should use for this russia 2018 qualifying campaign a few pages back. now looking at that pool of players i listed are their many players i may have left out who should be in the team now based on merit? i agree with icon that we already have a decent pool of players bar one or two.

TheGoodJoe:

The 1994 team were the best players home and abroad. That is what we aim to achieve. There is no too soon. As soon as they are better than the ones on the team, it I time to change.

every successful team needs or has had a touch of consistency. you may add or substract two or three but the basic spine needs to be there. take our golden generation the 1994 super eagles set. we knew who would almost all the time start. yekini, finidi, ben iroha, amokachi, jayjay, uche uchechukwu, peter rufai plus or minus a couple of players based of coaches formation, injury or loss of form. the world cup winning german team check there line up in 2010 compare to 2014 you would see that most of their stalwarts for that 2010 team were ever present in 2014.

i agree that for teams to progress and succeed you need to evolve but the trick is knowing the right time to change personnel and bring in fresh talent. do it too soon and you upset the balance of the team, do it too late your team stagnates. germans of the mid 80s to mid 90s dominated but the core of their winning group like klinsmann, luther mathais, brehme, hassler etc were kept on for too long and by the time they were replaced the new guys couldn't cope because it was a sudden change of the old guard instead of a seamless change.

as icon has rightly noted you can not use club football to do a comparison. man city, man u, arsenal etc can always go to buy quality players to replace any player in their ranks who has lost form but with the national team even if you have an aging quality player you want to replace if the replacement is not up to scratch you make do with your current guy until another can be discovered or groomed. unfortunately if the grassroots programme of the fa is nothing to write home about then it will many years before you can get quality ready replacements.

TheGoodJoe:

I am with BascoVanVeli on this. I am always against a steady team. Look at Manchester City. Sterling said he has to keep performing well because of Sane. That does not mean Manchester City is not searching for a player that can do better than both Sane and Sterling.

We have Aguero and Iheanacho. Yet we signed Gabriel Jesus who is another exciting prospect.

A team should be the collection of the best players that can represent the country and are ready to represent the country. Both local and foreign born.

When a player shows a sign, (this is the important part) that he can do better than the present player in the National team, or performs better than those in the National team, then we must invite that person.

If not, we are not fielding our strongest squad.

i think the date mixup is the fault of the zambian fa. october 3rd is not even a realistic date for the match because our players would still be involved in club matches on the 1st and 2nd so what time will they have to arrive talk less of training for the match?

TheSuperNerd:
Well, according to news I just got today, CAF is yet to "officially" approve a change of date from October 3rd to October 9th....



So it's possible both may happen on same day after all.... Unless...

hi everyone! as much as i agree that the national team needs strengthening we should not be advocating an all comers affair. right now i think we have a good pool of exciting players to choose from. we should now only invite players especially in our weaks like the full back positions, in particular left back and top striker who will give ighalo good competition.

to be honest i haven't seen fanendo adi play before so i can not judge his quality but from what i have read about him he's a big center forward who could be useful for long balls or knock downs in the box. at the moment we don't have too many players of his type playing at that top level except osimhen, awoniyi and sadiq umar. however these aforementioned lads are not quite ready (maybe osimhen given one year to improve) so adi could be useful. i agree however that we should first look at him in a friendly match setting.

like you i agree that pep's people skills can be off but a lot of the stuff you listed against him are half truths or urban myths.

you say he chased yaya away even though he is better than busquets. hmmm interesting logic cos one player went on to win multiple league and UCL titles plus world cup while the other went on to become a local champion in manchester city. guardiola is biased yet after he left barca coaches including former real madrid and spanish national team coach del bosque was using this same busquets who was blocking the destiny of macherano and toure to win titles.

yes he's racist that's why keita, abidal, etoo couldn't flourish under him.

iheanacho not going to olympics is a non issue to me. unless you are saying wenger and winfred ndidi's coach in gent are also racists for stopping iwobi, ndidi from going to the olympics besides you cannot compare messi of then to kelechi of now. messi of 2008 though young was already a key player in barcelona who had clout to ask to be allowed to go to the olympics. iheanacho on the other is a talented young man still trying to establish himself in the manchester city first team. he's not yet an invaluable member of the manchester city squad who can wake up and tell his employers i want to go to olympics and they will agree just like that.

Mickael2:
he deserves credit no doubt. But my point is that the natural talent had already been there, Guardiola was not the person who taught him the rubrics of being a midfielder hence he deserves just a little praise.

Anyways, delving into your argument, being a barcelona fan I must admit that Pep is a great coach but a very very poor manager. Bojan deteriorated under him, so did a lot of our other young players, if he does not like you, you are dead, that is not the sign of a good manager. Even after Mou insulted Eto he still played him, that means business first and that's the first thing you have to consider as a coach. I can go on and on higlighting his faults, Zlatan, Eto, Bojan etc etc. And the guy is a bloody racist too, read Messi's documentary, Pep became Barcelona's coach in 2008, that was the year of the olympics, Barca didn't want Messi to go so that he can learn the ways of the new coach but Pep came and told them that he can go, when asked Pep said he would NEVER prevent a player from going to the Olympics. Fast forward, Nacho was in thesame position recently, what did he do? The exact opposite, why? The color of his skin. Yaya was absolutely better than Busq in 2008/2009 but Pep chased him out because of him, Masch was also better than Busquets but he switched him into a CB just so that Busquets would play because Busquets is a spanish player and his dad is a close friend too. So he is a great coach(obviously aided by money and talent) but he is a bad manager

zambia looks beatable at home but make no mistakes about it they will be tough to crack as our previous games against them have shown. from their failed AFCON qualifying campaign they are not prolific scorers but they are draw specialists meaning they are ready to fustrate any attacking setup. we will have to be sharp in attack on the day.

question for the house. who do you guys reckon should lead the line against the zambians? as good as kelechi is i wouldn't want us to pressure him by making him lead the line. i think he functions best an attacking midfielder or supporting striker.

i fairly optimistic that we can qualify out of our world cup qualifying group. 4 wins and 2 draws should do it.

LetsGoSuperEagles!!!

i agree with goodjoe that oshaniwa deserves a look in. if not for anything but his performance in the world cup in brazil two years ago where he was one of our better defenders i think he is owed a fair crack of the whip. i'm not saying he should be in our starting xi but he should given a chance to prove himself.

that he hasn't been playing since may shouldn't be used to not call him because if musa mohammed who outside the national team has barely played competitive club football for almost a year can be invited then i don't see the controversy in bringing back juwon.

besides it's not like we have a plethora of outstanding leftbacks at the moment so juwon would only guarantee more competition for places.

don't worry with time you'll get the gist of our pidgin. feel free to ask about any words or phrases you might find confusing. all the best

you welcome!!!

jhswe:
Oh wow, I would never have guessed. :S Thank you! This is all very new to me.

hmmm real truth there. truth is no country in this case european football powerhouses will develop your youth for you. unless something is in it for them.

there's no day we won't have to sort how we pick the best young talents and groom them into becoming thorough breed professionals.

ideally our clubs would have been best placed to do this but our level of club management generally now in this country is too amateurish.

look at south american countries like brazil, uruguay, argentina etc. it's not like they have all the money in the world but even in their limitations they try to give the best coaching and training to their youngsters so that they have the basics tactical and technical wise. by the time these young players now get to europe world class facilities plus intense competition will bring out the best in them hence the reason why most of them become world class.

with nigerian or african players there are mostly raw talents and it's not every european club that has the money, time or patience to start teaching them the basics that they should have known right from the get go.

Icon4s:
Ur point is very valid. I just hope we will get it right this time.

However, I can tell you that the 1985 Golden Eaglets were picked from secondary schools. So they were actually U17. Then the thinking was children Under 17 years of age should still be in secondary schools. Age cheating started from the 1987 set. But recall one Peter Ogaba who died early this month was 13 years old. One of the pictures shows it below. That young Peter does not look more than 15 to me. The guy was no where to be found after he played U21 two years later.

Most of the 1985 Eaglets were mostly young but did not progress well. Several factors could be responsible which could mostly be linked to lack of exposure to World Class training and facilities as enjoyed by these new boys.

But as I have also stated on this thread that most of the graduates of the FIFA U17 WC don't end up playing for there respective senior national teams. It has been happening all over the world.

Look at the 2013 U17. The expectation was that by now a good number would be bossing things in the national team. For now, only Iheanacho and Musa Mohammed(Friendly game) have featured for the Super Eagles Team A. Musa Mohammed has even just been offloaded by his Turkish club! There are some of them that you would not even get to hear their names anywhere again. This trend as worrisome as it may seem has repeated itself the world over.

2015 marks the end of an era that spans from 2009. We will not be at the 2017 U17 and U20. This will mark an hiatus in Nigerian football and another generation will start building from 2019.

well why i might rate this iheanacho, awoniyi, success etc ahead of the previous generations is the age factor. thankfully due to mri testing we can vouch for this current set. so the potential to improve is there unlike previous generations who when we saw them were probably way older than their declared ages at cadet level. so when we saw a okoye or aghahowa or obodo perform so well at that level chances are these guys were at their peak hence the reason why they fizzled out so quickly. my friend and course mate in uni in the early 2000s told me how ikedia was his senior in secondary school even a senior prefect while na jss my paddy dey o. so as much as age falsification might not be the sole determinant why alot of these promising players faded my experience watching football tells me it definitely negatively impacted on player development in nigeria.

you are always welcome bro

great to have you back (hopefully with less unending arguments )

well can't say for sure if the difference between then and now was that pronounced. for me the late 70s to the mids 80s culminated in the golden age of nigerian league football but it was in the 90s that the senior national team became a force to be reckoned with. even though i might have been young but i definitely remember our league still being poor in the 90s

forgiveness:
Bros, thanks for remembering me oooo.

I wanted to take some time out from sports section small before I come back with ferocious force. Una no na.

About 'home based players been balling' 'then ooo', I will say the difference between our league now and then na like seven up. 'the difference is clear'

The quality of the league then can't be compared with now. There was quality, I mean quality when it comes to the League then. And that was why the stadium is always filled to the brim during league matches. And there was this passion and patriotism noticed with fans which you can't see in any Nigerian today. That alone makes our boys focus all their mind on playing abroad.

I know that because I have seen league matches live at the National stadium in the 80s and now. The fans were crazy. But nau mtcheeeeeeeee!

sad the high number of potential super eagles players who never made it. there was this guy too forgotten his name was a pocket rocket of a striker. short and stocky kind of like shaqiri but with less skill. played for enyimba but later moved to one top flight sudanese club. heard he was let go haven't heard about him since. david tyakase former enyimba striker helped them win back to back CAF champions league titles.

TheGoodJoe:

Bright Nigerian home League talents I knew in 2000 Era were,

Kelechi Osunwa. Started at Bright Stars Academy in Port-Harcourt. I think he won the golden boot in the Nigerian League before he left the country. He played for Coach Musa Abdullahi when he coached Dolphins.

Kelechi signed 3 years with Al Ahly Shendi in Sudan in the last of 2014 he is the highest alltime topscorer of Sudan premier league with 137 goals.

Kelechi scored 104 goals in 167 games with almerikh .he is the time top scorer in 2012 with 40goals in 51 games.

Bright Stars Academy Office was in D-Line near where I stayed. I had friends who played for them. None of us doubted Kelechi Osunwa would lead the Super Eagles attack. It is a mystery how such a brilliant talent did not make it. A sharp finisher.

He hardly played in a league where he was not the top scorer. In Nigeria and in Sudan.

wow didn't know such a fantastic thread existed really brings back the memories. remember the great 3SC team of 95/96 that won the CAF Cup beating one ugandan club like that and lost narrowly to zamalek in the final of the sekou toure cup now called the CAF champions league. moses kpakor, peter ijeh , john zaki BCC Lions main man, chris ohenhen good player was scoring goals for fun in the spanish la liga in the early 90s but couldn't get a call up to the super eagles, same for mike obiku and owobokiri doing their thing in feyernord and boavista respectively.

thegoodjoe, icons4, supernerd etc this is a great thread to visit. naija was blessed with so many players who never broke into the national team on a consistent basis.

forgiveness you are also invited to checkout this thread you will see that most home based players had been balling way before foreign born nigerians came into the equation.

hi @jhswe he was saying ''white dude what's up? how are things going with you? it's cool and awesome that you want to learn our nigerian pidgin language. it's not just us that will learn you guy's languages all the time. don't worry loads of nigerians here will be on hand to help you''