₦airaland Forum

elyte89:
What I knw is if deres a country dt can have 100percent win run is only Nigeria 🇳🇬…odas will slip up as we go along d qualifiers

But we need to change finidi …we can beat all these teams on our good day…

This your optimism is on another level when I grow up may I be like you but for now na learner I be for your side

mrwilliams9:
Nigeria as a whole doesn’t know how to manage and maintain success. That’s why we constantly have to rebuild from scratch. We fail to manage and maintain.

Won the AFCON in 2013 then failed to qualify for the 2015 and 2017 editions.

Similarly, went to the 2023 AFCON final but are stuttering in our WCQ

I have always advocated we build on our successes no matter how little but that’s when we still start arguing about eye catching football

Honestly I saw this coming you can’t be changing coaching crew with important qualifying matches underway we shouted this but some will say the same coach drew the first two matches but that was before Afcon now something happened in Afcon, build from there, ok your midfield is weak, tweak it. If musa was motivating the team from the sidelines as a non playing captain why can’t he continue the role thru the qualifiers, why throw everything away why why why? For God’s sake are we cursed? What’s wrong with us as a nation. We keep self sabotaging, okay injured players the ones on the bench at Afcon nko why bring in too many new players now, so many questions. Ndidi was not in Afcon why make him captain or lead the team haba too many changes in just 4 months. Nonsensical nonsense

Joebie:
South Africa will lead Nigeria 5 points at the end of this round. We are in trouble

When the SA coach said the draw they had in Nigeria was good for them, the man knows what he was talking about.

;

Joebie:
Our woes will be compounded should we have a run away leader in the group. If SA does well against other teams even if they lose to use we are not gonna make it.

You be get hope before? Una Dey try o, I no get that kind mind

komekn:
Unfortunately while we were in deep sleep corruption, mediocrity, godfatherism, tribalism, favouritism, nepotism, ineptitude, incompetence took over our NFA now NFF.

We must realise that while we were in a deep comotose sleep other nations , were wide awake building up their football ⚽ development. Andbsime have left us behind or are now able to compete.

Top level entertainment football is still being played at the highest levels.of football ⚽ just not by us sadly and UNFORTUNATELY.

I agree with you totally 💯 NFF refused to build on all the successes of yesteryears and we are paying dearly for it now

Joebie:
Same coach could only register 2 points after 2 games.

Let’s not forget Finidi didn’t have Osimhen, who was very instrumental to our AFCON run whether he scored or not.

Granted Finidi made bad choices in his selection, and maybe tactics as well.

The same Osihmen we don finish for here? Abegi
And like I said much earlier I would have preferred paseiro taking all these hit than finidi who has finally made a bad case for local coaches

Katcall:
Beside the SE has never been a possessional team. They wait and let the opponent lose the ball and then they breakaway

It was from the okocha era we started getting addicted to this eye catching football. In fact those days it was when the eagles was leading by a comfortable margin like 3-0 they start showboating with cheers from the crowd eeeee no coach needed to teach the team possession football then, they get the job done and entertain the crowd later. But now we got to teach them how to trap ball sef, may God have mercy!

TheGoodJoe:
You are missing the point. It is not a one way process but dynamic one. Scouting is a bit part of the process. Grooming is also it. The team has to keep growing and time will show. With time, playing the right way will have us having the materials to challenge any top side but we need to get serious and start.

Also remember we are not a patient nation when the results are not going our way. Once the team is not entertaining we say it’s negative football. The same thing we said during keshi reign, in fact if I remember well majority said he won afcon by luck. I believe in further building on top any little success and not belittling it all in the name of eye catching football. We will keep going round cycles.

Joebie:
The players know themselves. It’s not about the fans. It’s about instilling discipline and promoting excellence.

The coaches that tried to instil the discipline and grind out the results we say they are playing negative football. We got to decide what we want

TheGoodJoe:
That is why I said, such program would be tailored to the window. No one is to become Man City but the principles should grow in each transfer window.

One transfer window will be about the basics of keeping the ball.

Next tactical and positional insights.

Next defending as a unit.

And grow from there.

But from the first two windows, we must see a very clear identity and possessive play.

It can be done.

Five years down the line like we wasted with Rohr, we would have a sound possessive side that will terrify any side.

Finito.

With which players? We are better be humble. How many of our players are even in the top flight in Europe compared to even Senegal or even Ivory Coast. We got to be honest

TheGoodJoe:
Manchester City had Pro players and Guardiola trained them on how to keep the ball. Chelsea had pro players and Tuchel thought them how to keep the ball.

In Guardiola's first training session with Manchester City players, he thought them how to pass the ball.

When Guardiola signed Douglas Costa to Bayern Munich, the first thing he told him on the training pitch is that, are you ready to learn how to play football.

Pure possessive football is footballing education.

that's club football you're talking about, no national team coach in Africa except if he has more home-based players has that time to fine-tune any possession football. He can only expect his players to be professional in their approach. I heard Udeze saying in those days Amodu would tell him in match briefing by drawing a straight line on the board for him and tell him he should know what to do. in your own word, Finito!

Joebie:
It’s a discipline issue. Even at their clubs they could do the same but lose their position etc. we need to run this SE like serious business and with high degree of professionalism. Inviting players that have no business in the team is in itself another distraction.

but na we go shout if coach drop player wey we like o!

TheGoodJoe:
That is why the coach has to start with the basics. Use what you have at your disposal and select the best that can keep the ball naturally.

Train them to keep the ball.

Select the best goalkeeper amongst the ones you have that is good with his feet and can equally save.

Include players that their teams share a similar philosophy.

Then build from there. The program will run from window to window.

Performance will improve and with time good results will come.

Far better than working with negative ideas that keep us stagnant for years.

we cannot be training so-called European professionals on how to keep the ball na, it means we don't even have the players and that's where the problem lies in this philosophy that we have mentioned before, the materials are lacking.

TheGoodJoe:

I have told you with more deligent scouting, we can find the right personnel. It is not by folding arms and expecting Real Madrid and Manchester City to build personnel for us.

We have to take scouting seriously and also develop the right template to fit them.

Onyedika is a good example how the right personnel can be overlooked and it will seem they don't exist.

Finito.

By the time we are done scouting, we would have missed out on several editions of nations cup and world cup. See I understand your drift but you know in today's National football setting in sub-Saharan Africa it's not possible and I think that's where some of us are coming from. The logistics of having European-based players reporting to camp in Africa for national duty doesn't suit your approach. The days Westerhof can camp players in his hotel in Holland for several days are over. You can't even have your players in camp for up to a week to any National competition or any match even friendly sef.

TheGoodJoe:

If you try to understand the philosophy, you will not make such statement.

Possession football results in right positioning, defending as a unit, and cutting down the amount of time the opposition can attack. This reducing conceding silly goals.

Finito.

You have been told we don't have the personnel for it except you want to manufacture the players yourself which cannot happen in a national team setting like Nigeria. By the time we are done trying even Nations Cup, we won't qualify

charlesemeka85:
🇳🇬 Manchester United are one of the clubs interested in Atalanta winger Ademola Lookman. #MUFC [@sachatavolieri]

chineke egungun be careful o

TheGoodJoe:
All those do not equate to transforming a teams playing philosophy in less than a month. Same with Tuchel who used two training sessions to achieve.

The fact is that with the right coach, in two international windows, we can at least play a good possession game and with nice fluidity.

and concede cheap silly goals without enough goals to show smh

TheGoodJoe:
From your perspective. We have had club coaches move over to national football and doing well. Blows big hole in your theory.

you are the one who said Spain has tried na, let Pep move to a national team, and let's see how many trophies he will win

TheGoodJoe:
Story. Spain are the current Nations League champions. Europe and World Cup is not beans. They have tried. You still have the likes of Germany, Italy, Belgium, England to deal with. Spain have been a consistent contender for titles. Not only just in senior football but even junior levels.

Unfortunately, I missed yesterday's game, was too tied down, so I can't analyze it but a tree does not make a forest but it is a start.

What I am saying is that we were stagnant under Rohr and Peseiro and that gives no pride.

We need to fix our midfield. We need to fix our build up play. We need to work towards dominating possessive play and sorry, I am not seeing it in Finidi. I hope he can sort this out fast.

However, that terrible show that you call pride football is negative and will take us nowhere.

oh really? sorry club football and national team football cannot mix, end of story.

TheGoodJoe:
Toying with future of our football is allowing negativity rule us for so long.

We need to roll our sleeves and start working. All that negative football has made it difficult for us to even know good players.

See how Peseiro kept Onyedika on the bench the whole Afcon and played Iwobi off position and he looked a shadow of himself.

When we are ready for tactical and sound man management techniques and player development, and intelligent scouting and grooming methods, we will grow and get serious with our football.

and where has the onyedika taken us now? so you prefer to play eye-catching football and lose for the first time in a senior competition to Benin? common I feel you mix club football with national team football. Since Spain adopted Tiki Taka have they been winning the Euro or World Cup every four years?

What some of us call negative football is just fiction of imagination. National team football is pride, club football is business and entertainment, mixing the two can be complicated and even talking about club football, what is even the eye-catching football that real Madrid plays that they keep winning the champs league like their birth right. It doesn't add up jare.

TheGoodJoe:
People once thought Guardiola's football won't work in England. Same mentality you are showing.

we can't be toying with the future of our football because of experiments, that's why you have friendlies

And for attacking football pundits here, I have a word for you, playing within Africa requires you to go for the grind when it matters most, if we qualify for the World Cup then you can experiment with all those Guardiola formations when you play with other teams from other continents but within this Africa, you have to play dirty to get your way through. During the Afcon final, the Ivorians kicked our players almost through the first half, when they realized our players were tired according to their coach then they started slicing through our team with their sexy football. Even in the afcon semi final, the Southies always went for the injured stomach of osihmen when he was in flight to weaken him and even Ekong had to take a card for the team to break the counter of the Southies in one instance.

During friendlies, we can experiment with formation or no formation according to our coach but in competitive matches, you have to go for the win or result in whatever circumstances. We need ruthlessness, packing the bus, jam bodi or whatever. A win is a win and that's what matters most. Is it not a shame that foreign coaches understand this better than our local coaches? Enough said.

Odunayaw:
I was quiet but I wish i wasn't. I had no problem with Peseiro continuing. I liked the winning mindset he has

I don't think Finidi is a terrible coach either but this arrogance we have, I no know sha. Maybe na because I started watching SE in the early 2000s so I can't relate with the "glory days" some of these people love to reminisce on

in the glory days na akpu players full team, dreadful defenders like chidi nwanu, break-bone players like iroha, giants like uche okechuwkwu, who born monkey? ruthless midfielders like oliseh and mutiu then in front you have a tall gangling Yekini and the bull himself amokachi, those guys were very physical and can't be bullied anyhow on the pitch, come add skillful players like amunike and siasia, okocha sef was just the cherry on top. That team had spine and finess combined and we have never had such since then. Not forgetting the current coach with his nice crosses into the box.

This is why some of us appreciate the ruthlessness of an osihmen but some say he's not world-class.

komekn:
Good players make other players better.🤔

Bad players make good players bad 😔

It's a team weaknesses in the team impact all the players. This was the worsy game Ajayi and Bassey played as well Iwobi, Ndidi and Lookman for Nigeria.

But why ❓

No Ekong, no osihmen, no Aina. The trio in form would have woken the other players up

charlesemeka85:
they were expecting “sexy penetrative passes” steady for our matches 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Na that sexy penetrative pass carry us enter bush o 😂

Katcall:
I'm sure you were one of the people praising his appointment

Me that was quiet during the appointment of the coach. I’ve always advocated we stuck with what we had at Afcon cos of historical trends which keep repeating itself

lbrichman2:
If we sack Finidi now, we would be making the same mistakes we made with JPes
JPes also made mistakes, then he stumbled on a formula that worked for him and used it to get to AFCON finals
We let him go with all the knowledge he had

If we sack Finidi now, the instability will affect the players and possibly results (think Napoli this past season)

Let's stick with him and maybe the technical committee should monitor his call-ups from henceforth

Let's invite our best players in Europe and not all these half cooked players in Npfl and Tanzania leagues
Then we might have a chance

we said then that we needed a Lesson learned strategy from Afcon but all the attacking football analysts said it's anti naija football.

sticking with Finidi is a higher risk, am sorry he doesn't have the charisma to charge the boys forward. We have lost something huge after Afcon, the pattern Finidi is trying to play, we don't have the full personnel to execute as Finidi is trying to add something he thinks is missing from the Afcon experience. What he's trying is what Paseiro also tried before Afcon that did not work, make we no deceive ourselves

charlesemeka85:
abeg I hv never for once of recent follow una underrate osimhen

And if care is not taken it will take us so many years to produce a striker of osimhen’s qualities . Pple not value what they hv until they lose it

And why won’t u blame finidi? Is he not the same fool that said that one don’t need tactics Abi formation to win a match which shows how clueless he is 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Finidi Finished himself! Arrogance personified

charlesemeka85:
him wan play attacking football to entice fans and nff 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

this attacking football will continue to hunt us if we are not careful, we don't have the full spine for that now, that's what Rohr and Paseiro saw and tried to manage but our arrogance that we have it all will continue to be our bane. If we like make we no hear word, we will continue to cry over what we don't have

MallamSpicey:
Bad coaching aside, it's time to take a long and hard look at some of this crop of players we have...super-stars at their clubs but absolute wankerss for country. Boniface spends more time making banger (though admittedly funny tweets) on his X account that you wonder if he even finds the time to train in camp? Osimhen gives his all for Nigeria but can never be relied upon to be fit when we need him the most. Iwobi tries his best but I suspect he won't be able to handle the inevitable storm of stupid fans who will abuse him on social media, so he might prematurely either retire or outrightly refuse future call up's. Lookman will be Lookman, decent on his days and frustrating to watch on other days- too inconsistent to rely upon to give us moments of magic when needed.

That leaves us with a team that looks super talented on paper, yet seem to be lacking that winners mentality we used to see from previous SE teams.

Honestly I'll pick the Osaze/Yakubu/Emenike set over these players, at least those guys gave their all despite not playing for the best clubs across Europe. See how a player like Emenike played like his life depended on it, only Osimhen from this current set gives that type of dogged mentality.

We can still qualify from this group as the second or third best team and make the playoffs, but surely we need to go all out and get a experienced coach preferably foreign cause we simply don't have any good Nigerian coaches right now.

The team lacks a leader on and off the pitch there was a reason Ahmed musa was always being invited but we all said he’s a spent force.

We surely missed Ekong and Oshimen who were the leaders on the pitch at Afcon

chrisooblog:
Have to give you your due you called it during the AFCON that somehow we might contrive to not make it to the WC and well hmmm.

I think the SE need to be studied as a course in uni how a team snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. I backed Finidi but sadly he's failed before he even got started. Our senior men's national team (won't be calling them super for the time being) need to take a hard look at themselves in the mirror about what it was means repping the country. All the goals conceded in this window have been from silly mistakes/loss of concentration which speaks to a lackadaisical attitude.

Finidi had enough talent to turn it around but he didn't.

I already steadied myself about us potentially missing the WC it will/would hurt but it happens.

Haters/trolls are free to drag to your hearts content it's your day

My fears have been confirmed, exactly what happened after 2013 we can’t manage little successes.

National team coaching ain’t easy if a coach has gone unbeaten in 5 games with a team hurriedly assembled he must be doing something right all you need is to improve from there.

Joebie:
E no go increase considering Peseiro never fit find work. Let’s work it out mutually.

aah with all these our tiki taka analysts for here? No go there o