Odegbami: Siasia should partner Eguavoen to lead new Super Eagles

Between October 11 and 15, 2024, Nigeria’s Super Eagles will take on the Mediterranean Knightsof Libya in two legs of the qualifying matches for the 2025 AFCON.

The matches will present an opportunity for the country to continue to build a new Super Eagles from the ashes of recent disasters with foreign coaches, as the country continues to search for a suitable permanent coach.

Meanwhile, Head of the Technical Department of the Nigeria Football Federation, Augustine Eguavoen, continues to hold forth in that position without commanding enough national confidence to make him the permanent coach of the team. 

It is imperative, therefore, that a decision on next Manager for the team be addressed as quickly as possible. Testier times and more difficult matches lie ahead. The psychology of the country and the team needs reinforcement following unconvincing performances and results. 

I have a simple ‘interim’ suggestion. The NFF should look in the direction of Samson Siasia again for reinforcement of the present equilibrium. 

Why Samson Siasia?

Between 1993 and 1995 I played a role in the Nigeria Football Association as Head of the Technical Committee, and Team Manager (later changed to Welfare Officer) of the Super Eagles. I was an integral part of the national team when Clemens Westerhof was Technical Adviser (Manager). 

I was in the heart of the team through the qualification and participation of Nigeria in the World Cup and in winning the African Cup of Nations in Tunisia in the same year, 1994. 

It was not a big deal, but I lived with the team in their various camps, shared my ideas quietly with Clemens Westerhof and the NFA led by Air-Commodore Emeka Omeruah, and was directly in charge of the welfare of the players.  

In short, I had a more than a passing knowledge of all the players beyond their playing the game and doing so very well. It was part of my being and private work to look beyond the surface of things and what roles the players could play after their football careers. 

I was particularly interested in those that could become coaches good enough to succeed Clemens Westerhof and ensure that Westerhof became the last foreign coach to handle the Super Eagles.

A few of the players were approaching the end of their illustrious playing careers and were loaded with unique experiences that would serve them in good stead and elevate them above the ex-international players of the previous eras in the hierarchy of those deserving to become national coaches. 

The Super Eagles were one of the best teams in the world and Nigeria’s most priced international image-maker to the extent that when USA President Bill Clinton visited the country after USA ’94  his first comment to airport correspondents at the Murtala Muhammed Airport was about Nigeria’s Super Eagles and Rashidi Yekini. 

The Super Eagles were so revered that they featured on the cover of a special edition of Timemagazine on the eve of the 1994 World Cup. The team was that big, and I am proud to claim a little but significant credit for the role I played as Team Manager in charge of players’ welfare between 1993 and 1995.  

That experience provided me with a very unique insight into the individual players, enabling me to make academic deductions about their strengths and weaknesses.

The more I studied them the more I realized how important they all would be for the future of Nigerian football, particularly in the area of producing technical leadership and guidance for the national teams, and end the dependency on foreign coaches in Nigerian football.

Nigeria had to produce qualified Nigerians drawn from the Class of 1994 with experiences at the broadest and highest levels. These would handle the various Nigerian national teams and take the country to the very top of global football. 

The ‘revolution’ began with, Stephen Keshi, the ‘Big Boss’ , who, in 1995, was at the tail end of his playing career. 

Clemens Westerhof was aware of Keshi’s outstanding qualities and always told anyone willing to listen.  He believed Stephen Keshi was born to lead the Super Eagles as coach one day. 

The great player went on to get his coaching licenses, became a coach, eventually became coach of the national team and, despite some ‘jaundiced’ opposition by some administrators and a small section of the media, Keshi fulfilled all expectations and achieved results with the Super Eagles that matched or surpassed the best by any foreign coach before and after him, till now. 

Incidentally, Keshi was not alone in that group of players that had the qualities to handle the national teams and to halt the unprofitable practise of regular recourse to unknown and expensive foreign coaches that slowed down Nigeria’s progress in football on the field of play. 

The players of the Class of 1994 had all the experiences – as players from the domestic leagues in Nigeria, to high profile teams and leagues in Europe, to winning the African Cup of Nations and qualifying for the World Cup for the first time. 

I made these purely academic observations based on my own limited experiences as a player too under local and foreign coaches. 

Clemens shared similar views about the players that could become successful national team coaches in the 1994 team with Onochie Anibeze of Vanguard newspaper

Sunday Oliseh, Emmanuel Amuneke and Finidi Gèorge did not make his cut because they were relatively younger and reserved in camp, not showing enough of their true characteristics for anyone to have seen their potential as future coaches. 

The first and most obvious was Stephen Keshi. His leadership characteristics transcended playing. He was a sure-bet to be a national coach. There was no disputing or halting his rise to the top. 

Another player in that group that struck me (and my opinion were supported later by Onochie Anibeze and Clemens Westerhof) was Samson Siasia. 

Samson was a silent operator, a player behind the scenes of major events, one who knew what he wanted and would always express it without being centre of attraction and considered a rebel. He was influential in the team without being unduly loud. He was clever and very intelligent. I saw through all of that exterior, recognised his great potential as national coach, and wrote my views publicly. 

Time and providence proved me right. Samson Siasia went into coaching and did not look back. He rose through the ranks from Club football to national Under-20 and Under-23 teams. His teams played in the finals of both global FIFA championships.

He was ranked amongst the best young coaches in the world by FIFA after the performance of the Under-23 team at the Olympics finals against Argentina. He was drafted to work first as assistant to Augustine Eguavoen and finally on his own as Super Eagles coach for a short spell.  

It is rather unfortunate that he suffered the ‘injustice’ of a suspension by FIFA for an offense it was claimed he was going to commit but never did. What is indisputable is that he is the most qualified, experienced and successful indigenous coach in Nigeria’s history. 

Now, he has fully served his suspension in the past few months. 

What has he been up to since then? 

I asked and learnt that rather than lament the ‘wasted’ 5 years of his life, or jumping into the fray of looking for a coaching job, he has moved to Europe to refresh his knowledge and coaching skills in preparation for coaching at the highest levels again. 

Nigeria is still looking for a Nigerian that can lead the national team and save the country from the menace of expensive foreign coaches.  However that search ends, 

Samson Siasia should  be drafted as a tag-team partner of Augustine Eguavoen in the present arrangement, to reinforce the team’s technical and psychological depth with his rich skills in preparation to be a part of any newSuper Eagles arrangement at the top.