The Sun News On-line

Call it a recipe for success and you are damn right! You can as well call it the home truth or the gospel truth. According to the President General of Nigeria Supporters Club, Dr Rafiu Ladipo, Coach Shuaibu Amodu could make his mark in his third term as the Super Eagle’s coach if he would shun sentiment in his selection of players for the team.

As the coaching crew are being unveiled in Abuja today by the Nigeria Football Association (NFA), Ladipo agrees that the task before Amodu and his troika - Daniel Amokachi, Fatai Amoo and Alloy Agu - is like moving Mount Everest from Asia to Africa. This seems impossible, but Ladipo argued that faith in God could make it real.

“With faith in God and unfettered ability to overcome temptations from desperate players and their money-bag agents, Amodu may just etch his name in gold as the best local coach ever,” Ladipo said.
“I wept like a baby when Nigeria lost 2–1 to Ghana in the last Nations Cup,” Ladipo told Daily Sunsport in faraway Abidjan recently during the investiture of Dr Amos Adamu as the president of West African Football Union (WAFU).

“If I had had gun in Accra, Ghana, I would have shot Berti Vogts because of the humiliation we went through in the hands of the Ghanaian supporters. Even after the defeat, they made us to alight from our bus and forced us to dance and sing round the city with them.”

It was an exhilarating moment for the victorious Ghanaians, who felt that Nigeria was the cog they had to dismantle to win the Nations Cup for the fifth time. But while the trumpets were blaring like that of the Israelites after the fall of the wall of Jericho, Ladipo confessed that he was weeping profusely inside. He felt like cursing the day Vogts was employed as Eagles’ coach and those that brought him to Nigeria.

“That day, I prayed that Vogts should not stay one more second as Super Eagles coach,” he said, looking rattled as if the incident had just happened yesterday. “I’m happy that the German is gone forever. I sincerely welcome Amodu, but there must be a lot of don’ts if he must succeed.”

Chief among the litany of don’ts, which Amodu must hold as his Bible, is that he should not serve as manager to any of the Eagles’ players. “That’s the easiest way to derail,” he said. “He must also distance himself from the plethora of football hawks, who mill around the handlers of the national teams as players’ agents.

“Vogts took our football back to pre-1994 World Cup when the country used to struggle to qualify for major tournaments,” he added. “You can see why Amodu is not favoured by the circumstances on ground. He has a big task not to fail like the German. He’s faced with the arduous task of rebuilding a new team, of unleashing an attack-conscious Eagles on the rest of Africa, contrary to the defensive mechanism of the failed German coach.

“He needs supports from all of us, just as we have to pray for his success. Above all, Amodu must be ‘mad’ if he wants to succeed. He must be ‘crazy’ in taking some decisions about the players. He should be focussed and gaze his eyes only on the things that will aid his success. No sentiment in selecting players; no friends; no brothers and no relations should be considered in taking key decisions. He should shun sentiment and refuse the usual bait to manage any of the players.

“I’ve come to realise that most of our players are not patriotic. Is it not disturbing that some of the players who failed to rise to the occasion in Ghana went back to their clubs in Europe and started banging in goals? Is it not the height of lack of patriotism that the players who could not risk their legs for Nigeria in Ghana put all their limbs on the line as soon as they went back to their bases?

“Amodu should have the liver to show some of the old players the red card. I don’t want to mention names, but I know those who should not don Nigeria’s colours again. I suppose Amodu should know them too. Those players had made so much money that Nigeria means nothing to them again, but they tend to forget that it’s Nigeria that spewed them to stardom.

“Look at what the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon did. They lost 4–2 to Egypt in their first match and refused to take a day off the following day. They had a meeting and resolved to fight back. No wonder they were in the final. That’s the mark of true champions. Egypt may have won the trophy, but for me, the winners of Ghana 2008 Nations Cup were Cameroon.”

For a man who has become a living legend in the art of beating the drum, blowing the trumpet, singing himself coarse and dancing to lift the spirit of the players during matches, Ladipo assures that Amodu and his players will get everything they can offer.

“Our support for the Eagles will not diminish. Everywhere the team go the supporters will be there, even if it is inside the rocks. We’ll continue to swim with them and pray that they do not get drown again. Those of us who staked our necks and blood to clamour for Amodu’s return will have no place to hide our faces if the crew fail.”

Amodu will receive his baptism of fire against Austria at the end of May, and he appears to have taken the gauntlet against erring Eagles, including Obafemi Martins and Christian Obodo, insisting that they must report to camp for the team doctor to confirm the veracity or otherwise of their claims of injury. What a smarts way to start a journey.