The Sun News On-line

Many Nigerian soccer-lovers must have been praying ceaselessly for coaches Shaibu Amodu and Okey Emordi to succeed, so that apostles of foreign coach in Nigeria would keep their mouth shut forever.

While others also keep vigil in churches across the nation for the duo to etch their names in gold, Emordi told Daily Sunsport in Calabar last Sunday that the task before them is enormous, praying that they have the bold shoulders to carry on successfully.

“We must succeed,” Emordi said after his home-based Super Eagles walloped their counterparts from Burkina Faso at the Calabar Stadium. “Amodu and I are faced with a great challenge, and we must make the best of it. At least to prove critics of local coaches wrong. If we do well, then Nigerians can say with one voice that foreign coaches can look elsewhere.

“We need prayers and support of Nigerians. We have to prove that foreign coaches are not better than the local coaches.”
According to Emordi, Nigerians will continue to clamour for the employment of a foreign coach if the desired results expected of them are not realized.
He said part of the reasons Nigerian coaches are not getting results with the national team could be traced to lack of respect from the players, who are based in Europe but he vowed to instill discipline in the home-based Eagles squad, to set a precedent for the players in the real Super Eagles.

Emordi further said the Nigerian League has abundant talents that could compete favourably with the players in Europe but asked clubs to treat their players with dignity, as a way of encouraging them to give their best.

Emordi, who coached Enyimba International Football Club of Aba to a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League victory in 2004, is also full of praises for the continental football body for initiating the Africa Cup of Nations Championship for the players, who are based in Africa, as he vowed to be the first coach to lift the trophy at the end of the championship in Ivory Coast next year.

“I have always been an apostle of hiring a local coach for the Super Eagles. I have the conviction that our local coaches have all it takes to succeed technically, but the desire by our administrators to go for foreigners has always been a stumbling block to this dream.

Now that the present board of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) have hearkened to this clarion call, I am optimistic that they will not regret their action. Amodu has the experience and the charisma to lead the Eagles. He has been coach of the team on two occasions and had gone outside Nigeria to coach a Premier League side.

“His assistants, Daniel Amokachi, Aloy Agu and Fatai Amoo, are seasoned professionals, who played the game to the highest level and won laurels for both Nigeria and their clubs. So, tell me how this set of people will toil with their integrity and the trust of about 140 million Nigerians!
“I am not holding brief for them, but the truth must be told. The employment of Berti Vogts brought anguish to Nigerians and I am happy that he realized his shallow knowledge in the nitty-gritty of football on the African continent.

“These foreign-based players never believed in the ability of local coaches and, as such, behave in a manner that frustrates them. Take, for instance, when Berti Vogts was in charge, the players arrived early to meet the camp deadline... or call him to give them a few hours grace, with genuine excuse, but they did not do same when Christain Chukwu was in charge.

“This kind of orientation must change, and Amodu must be firm in his quest to succeed.
I am equally happy that CAF introduced the Africa Cup of Nations for the home-based players, as a means of encouraging our league players and exposing them to the rest of the world.
“Before now the league player believed that the only way he could be a relevant tool for the Eagles was to travel to an obscure country and play for a mushroom club, then return with pictures he took with whitemen and make case for himself, having played abroad.

All this is about to change because I, as the coach of the home-based Eagles, would make every player invited to be part of us a potential material for the Super Eagles.

“We have just started and, I know that by the time we are through with the qualifiers, Nigerians would have fallen in love with the style of football we play. What happened in Calabar over the weekend was part of the problems I talked about earlier. Players were invited to camp in preparation for the first leg encounter with the Stallions of Burkina Faso, but most of them stayed away, till a few days to the match.

“It was a case of either their clubs stopped them, or they stopped themselves. But this attitude would not be tolerated henceforth, because there are one thousand and one players who are equally as good. We can pick them from about 20 clubs in the Premier League.
“Now we have asked them to come to Abuja in preparation for the return leg in Ouagadougou, I am confident my stand on lateness has sunk into their heads.

“We struggled to find our rhythm against the Stallions, I must confess. My players did well individually, which is not how victory is achieved.
“Our opponents understood themselves in all departments from the beginning, till about five minutes to the end of the game, which accounted for the red card their skipper got for elbowing Ambrose Efe.

“It would, however, be a different ball game on their own soil, because we will put all we have into the match. I know it would be difficult but with adequate preparations, we shall overcome. All I ask from our clubs is to see the release of their players for this game as a call to serve, and I promise that the players will return to them when we are through with this first phase of our quest to make history, by being the first African country that lift the trophy in Ivory Coast,” he boasted.