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Nigeria has always had talented players but football has always been a team game, looks like I'm first to comment woo! :D

Excellent blog Piers, it's always great to get an insight into a developing nation's footballing prowess

SiaSia will have it very easy. Why? Because he is the people's choice
Amodu came in at a time when people wanted Siasia.

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Very good blog. Nigerians Love siasa and he would be given chance. Shaibu is totally different. Siasa would be tough on the big players, while Saibu as always been weak with the Big Players. Nigeria want tough coach like Clemens Westerhof and Bonfrere Jo.

Nigeria's Super eagles? more like an dying eagle:


tatterred and torn featherssores all over.

can't soar nor glide.

emits lots of black smoke trying to fly.

creaking wings.

severrely weakened and rubbery beak.

practically blind eyes/vision with no retina.

cracked and overwrinkled skin.

no appetite for success.

misses by miles easy landings on flat surfaces.

wretched outlook for life.

and the list continues....

look, you need to go back and watch the Eagles at this year's CAN against the TINY SQUIRRELS of Benin, to see how bad this former graceful and majestic bird now struggle againsts even the tamest of oppositions.

i've never in my life seen a squirrel harrass an eagle, but the Squirrels did so with glee last January...


SOLUTION to REJUVENATION:

get another WESTERHOF like character, who can:

1...kick the butts and get rid of the players with inflated egos and overaged, such as mikel obi, yakubu, etc

2...shun the NFF and walk in to the president's office at will to avoid the obstacles/medusas called NFF and Sports Ministry.

3...stop calling powerless and spineless players such as etuhu, and that guy who got the red card card against greece, and all other tasteless bums in the team

4...use as many players as possible in as many matches as possible before getting a final 36 strong team.

5...LIVE IN NIGERIA AND TOUR NIGERIA IN DEPTH....like westerhof did.....EAT NIGERIAN FOOD TO KNOW WHY NIGERIAN PLAYERS NEED A HARDSKINNED MANAGER, like westerhof did.........REFUSE TO LISTEN TO NIGERIAN PRESS CRITCISM.

6...Manager SHOULD REFUSE TO SHARE HIS SALARY WITH THE NFF, like Westerhof refused the NFA back then.....

Nigeria's best manager by light years is westerhof......Nigeria needs another strongman like him!!!

Nice incisive blog, we hope the poor administrators will give our Siasia enough time to succeed (Imagine this; after having to personally source for funds to execute the FIFA under 21 world cup where Nigeria came 2nd to Messi's Argentina, he was asked by - guess who - to submit the funds for disbursement by ''them''!). He's the fan's favorite though it's difficult to understand the reason you'll pay an expat so much (for SA 2010 world cup) and pay a citizen so little for the same job! (what is this type of behavior called?). By the way, Nigeria's peak rating by FIFA was 5th.

Siasia has good PRINCIPLES & he's DISCIPLINE coach-wise with his players....go SIA !...we've got ur back!!!!

@6

I could have sworn it was Sani Kaita who was sent of for senselessy kicking out at his opponent.

the root cause of failure of African football as a whole is simply the fact that our players worry too much about getting injured while playing for their countries... until they put countries above clubs like those of Oliseh, Taribu West, Kanu and Ja Ja Okocha used to do, our continental football is close to death.
it is not that we have less talent now then in the 1990s and early 2000s but the shift is commitment and full delivery to your country which is affecting the countries in Africa(Nigeria included) and that is why Egypt has been outstanding because almost 2/3 of their players play at home and their heart is there to deliver for their country unlike the rest.

9. At 7:58pm on 11 Dec 2010, olifen wrote:
@6

I could have sworn it was Sani Kaita who was sent of for senselessy kicking out at his opponent.



OLIFEN, i know you're right.....but ready my comment quoted below again, i did not say it was Etuhu, i said:


3... ".....and that guy who got the red card card against greece".....

i could not remember the name kaita... BUT, i did not say it was etuhu, read my comment again!!!

Samson Sia Sia will do better - if not better than the 1994 Super-Eagles because he was a member of that team, he learned from both successful coaches Westerhof and Jo Bonfrere. He also seemed to be enjoying the support of all the 1994 team-mates of Olise, Okocha etc.
Above all, Samson Sia Sia will succeed because he was the coach of the successful and high-flying Flying Eagle teams which fell to Argetina twice in a row where the likes of Mikel Obi and others were discovered and he has used those instances to gain experience as the people's coach. That is why the Nigerian people liked him so much.
Nigeria is a great football nation where everyone knows the game (to some extent) including market women (watch the Nigerian Femal Team), but Sia Sia knows that he needs and he will surely seek the support of the almost 200 million Nigerians while he began his career as a coach for the football Powerhouse nation called Nigerians.
In Nigeria, we don't want to win the game, but we want to win with free flowing attacking football with abundance of skills and football senses. Nigerians want to get them young, but the only problem is that the "All Nigerian Secondary School Games" that usually produce the Super Eagles every four years is no longer available. Samson Sia must first work on that - getting the local sports council to re-start the programs.
Finally, Sam Sia Sia knows that to win is a project that requires project management mentalities. Set target, start working on the plan to get to target goals.

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Good blog. Its good not to generalize. Everybody doesn't think Siasia is the 'messiah'. You judge someone by his achievements. He has done well and he has done not so well. But this guys crooning about his successes but makes excuses for his failures. He didn't do well in his last national job and with Heartland he failed only to blame players openly, saying the team wasn't his.
He needs to win things but the insanely optimistic fans must know Nigeria can't win things based on luck when age cheating isn't at play. Prepare and cater for the players and they can play without fear. Not looking for players that have been invested in by others like Onuoha but not doing the investment. Sow where you want to reap. And I am a Nigerian.

Amos Adamu & FIFA where the real problem in Nigerians futball.No oil producing country gets an easy ride with football.FiFa is addicted to oil money. Amos Adamu was their atmcard in Nigeria.Amos Adamu is one of the wealthiest nigerians & as he grew rich, our football grew short. A poor nation like nigeria hosted 2 world cups in 10year because FIFA knows what they individually get from that.Adamu prefared Nigeria bought refs over than play good futbal & anytime the govt threatened him, He & September Blatter will counter with a Ban. But Adamu was always honest until he oined FIFA.Where is democracy in FiFA with only two presidents in more than 2 decades. Like every other global demon, fifa is wikileaks away from d collapse we are all praying 4.

The expectation of Nigerians is not unfounded. We have the resources and the materials to make any coach perform well. I hope Sia 1 will not disappoint Nigerians because lots of confidence is in the air that he will perform. If he can keep his cool, talk less and do more. I believe he should make it.

It can be said that coaching Nigeria is one of the toughest because Nigerians are not patient people, so like Pardew, Siasia should be up and running. Some of the boys are used to him from the age grade level, so he should start from the known to the unknown.
I wish him the best.

When I hear fans oohing and aahing about Siasia, I ask myself whether I mysteriously lost time. Whether in the time I maybe was abducted by aliens he had gone ahead to coach Inter Milan, Barcelona, Man United and won a string of trophies.
But if I didn't lose time, then I wonder exactly where the magic wand went. As much as I can remember, here's what I know about his recent record as coach (Played four matches at the U-20 World Cup in Egypt - lost three badly. Played six games in the group stage of the CAF Champions League with Heartland this year - lost his three away games and drew his three home games)
That doesn't sound like Jose Mourinho's CV, yet we call him the Special One. Hmmmmm. If passion and goodwill are all it takes to succeed, then I'd say he'd win the World Cup, but so many other things go into making successful teams.
Where are the players? With our best players in the West Hams and West Broms of the world, where are the players? And here's more dilemma for Siasia - The old and ageing populate his team, while the young have no experience. If he goes with the old (who have little quality) he can't win, if he turns to the young (who have better quality) he would need at least four years (How long has Wenger been building his new Arsenal?!)
Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal are streets ahead of Nigeria in player quality and the latter duo are already on the freeway in the development of their younger teams.
The science of football coaching like the rest of science has moved at a frightening pace... I do not recall that Siasia has taken time to develop himself in recent times. Players like students sense when their teachers are not up-to-date and there is no bigger respect killer than that.
Mikel comes from listening to Ancelotti and subconsciously expects Siasia to be at least close in his methods otherwise kaplunk!... players just don't wake up and be committed otherwise Mourinho and Alex Ferguson won't be who they are.
Winning managers build committed teams. It's not about patriotism, and I think we miss that point all the time in Nigeria. Same Inter that was a fighting squad last season has now be Benitezed.
NFF is generally poor at administration and many more and there is not much support that Siasia can hope to get from those guys.
Finally - until the Nigerian League gets its groove back I really can't see where the quality will come through from (remember we don't have solid youth development programmes). The last time Nigeria played great football was in 1998. That's the year Kanu moved to England and Nigeria followed him - and consequently the local league lost its mojo. Since then our quality has been in trickles.
Same players Amodu used that we abused him for are the same players there today. As Nigerians are such big and proud followers of the English game, maybe FIFA can allow us borrow a few English players then.
I hope Siasia succeeds, I hope Nigeria succeeds, but yes Piers the Nigerian job is the Poisoned Chalice.

When I hear fans oohing and aahing about Siasia, I ask myself whether I mysteriously lost time. Whether in the time I maybe was abducted by aliens he had gone ahead to coach Inter Milan, Barcelona, Man United and won a string of trophies.

But if I didn't lose time, then I wonder exactly where the magic wand went. As much as I can remember, here's what I know about his recent record as coach (Played four matches at the U-20 World Cup in Egypt - lost three badly. Played six games in the group stage of the CAF Champions League with Heartland this year - lost his three away games and drew his three home games)

That doesn't sound like Jose Mourinho's CV, yet we call him the Special One. Hmmmmm. If passion and goodwill are all it takes to succeed, then I'd say he'd win the World Cup, but so many other things go into making successful teams.

Where are the players? With our best players in the West Hams and West Broms of the world, where are the players? And here's more dilemma for Siasia - The old and ageing populate his team, while the young have no experience. If he goes with the old (who have little quality) he can't win, if he turns to the young (who have better quality) he would need at least four years (How long has Wenger been building his new Arsenal?!)

Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal are streets ahead of Nigeria in player quality and the latter duo are already on the freeway in the development of their younger teams.

The science of football coaching like the rest of science has moved at a frightening pace... I do not recall that Siasia has taken time to develop himself in recent times. Players like students sense when their teachers are not up-to-date and there is no bigger respect killer than that.

Mikel comes from listening to Ancelotti and subconsciously expects Siasia to be at least close in his methods otherwise kaplunk!... players just don't wake up and be committed otherwise Mourinho and Alex Ferguson won't be who they are.

Winning managers build committed teams. It's not about patriotism, and I think we miss that point all the time in Nigeria. Same Inter that was a fighting squad last season has now be Benitezed.

NFF is generally poor at administration and many more and there is not much support that Siasia can hope to get from those guys.

Finally - until the Nigerian League gets its groove back I really can't see where the quality will come through from (remember we don't have solid youth development programmes). The last time Nigeria played great football was in 1998. That's the year Kanu moved to England and Nigeria followed him - and consequently the local league lost its mojo. Since then our quality has been in trickles.

Same players Amodu used that we abused him for are the same players there today. As Nigerians are such big and proud followers of the English game, maybe FIFA can allow us borrow a few English players then.

I hope Siasia succeeds, I hope Nigeria succeeds, but yes Piers the Nigerian job is the Poisoned Chalice.

For the fist time in since 1994 we have a coach who is able to stand his ground against indiscipline in the team as demostrated during the selection for the olympic games in china when mikel was drop 4 lack of committment and gross indiscipline. this alone would make all players to know that everybody is dispensable. but for sisia to suceed he must be allowed to pick all his backroom staff, so as not to have an excuse for failing.

It is easy for people to talk about indiscipline in the playing team but not with the administrators of the team. The statement made by the President of the NFF during the unveiling of Siasia as the Coach of Nigeria that he had employed the "people's choice" shows that the moment the people say they no longer want Siasia as coach he would listen and sack him. The same thing they did to Amodu Shuaibu who qualified Nigeria for the World Cup twice. Until we have real football people managing our football we will not succeed even if we engage Jose Marinho. The people who employed CW did not listen to "the people" before he was employed or during his tenure as Coach of NIgeria. If they had done so they would not have employed him or they would have sacked him after the 1990 Nations Cup finals in Algeria.
The Nigerian Sporting press is the main proplem that the sport has. The people do not agitate as much as the press who devote their time in slandering any coach that is employed by Nigeria if he does not invite their players (we know that some of them take bribe to promote the profiles of players so that they can be invited to play for NIgeria). When CW was employed by then NFA the press criticised the FA accusing them of employing a second class coach, now it is easy to say he was the best coach ever employed by Nigeria. If those at the helm of the FA had listened to the press we will not be talking about CW now. We employed TL who qualified Holand for the 1990 World Cup, the press chased him out. We will not succeed until we have people who know what they want as experts and stick with the choice of Coaches they employ for Nigeria just as Yusuf Ali did by not listening to the "people". Give a coach enough time as he is the expert who has the Know-how then it is then that Nigeria can get back to where they were in the 1990s.

I am not a new member. i used to comment with the name akinduro234 but since the change in membership I changed my registration.

The big Question is if Siasia took Nigeria to the world cup would he have included Kanu and. Yobo?
If answer is yes we are finished before we can start! The reasons are obvious.