Siasia
Last week, we hinted about the herculean task ahead of the new Eagles coach. It is courteous to congratulate the coach for his emergence and appointment into this exalted position.
The manager or head coach of the senior national football team of the giant of Africa is comparable to the helmsman of a very big business conglomerate in terms of challenges and expectations.
In the same vein, the helmsman of the Eagles team must be up to the task to achieve results. Secondly, there has been a huge cry for indigenization of leadership of this team. Siasia’s appointment has met the goal of those who yearn for this situation. For me, it does not really matter who takes the job, so long as the team delivers the good results.
Delivering the good results, befitting of Nigeria’s status as a big nation with its peoples’ great love for football is the challenge of the new coach. The target of reaching the semi_final levels in both the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations and 2014 World Cup hopefully will bring out the best from coaches and players. It is low ambition however, to only aim at semifinal at the Africa Cup of Nations. I thought we should aim at the trophy itself.
What should Siasia do differently on this job? He needs, in my opinion, a paradigm shift. He needs not assume that playing in Europe means a qualification to automatically play for Nigeria. This assumption has proved to be very fatal. For many years, Nigerian players in Europe play lazily while in the national team. They are hardly gameful enough to scratch the opponents. It has deteriorated to a level where other national teams in Africa take ours for granted.
This has to change. Changing it also means building a new team with the appropriate psychology. Siasia must be coaching not just the skill, technique and tactics of the new Eagles, but more of their psychology. The team must spit fire on the field. Currently our team has no fire at all. It is very awful. They are not mechanized at all. Nigeria needs a highly mechanized team with fire in their bones to get us results. This is the problem.
Our foreign legion of players only exhibit the foregoing qualities in their chubs to guarantee their high wages. But at home, they play “sisi” football for Nigeria. The new coach needs to look inward in the local scene to scoop out trainables who have desire to excel. This would help him.
Siasia as leader of the team needs to be a very disciplined person. This exalted position, which to me, is a high achievement, demands a lot of personal discipline to succeed. I hope he will remain trim and fit to be able to cope with stress of the job. I hate to see a pot-bellied coach.
He must manage his interpersonal relationship with players and at the same time retain his dignity and integrity. If the players respect him fully, then he could get the best in terms of game performance. Siasia must be sure of his instructions to players and leave no one in doubt as to what he wants to accomplish. He must assert his authority and be the man in –charge of affairs.
A coach of any sport must be current with the literature warehousing the relevant knowledge about his sport. Siasia must be a coach that reads voraciously to refresh his knowledge. Fresh ideas and philosophy about his job will definitely lift his performance. I do not know how much our coaches read, but I do know that reading widely is a key habit of most successful and effective Chief Executives and football or sports cannot be an exception.
What else does the coach need to make a difference? They are more things but I must mention that he needs pragmatic sports scientists who can breakdown for him the variables and characteristics of the team in training to enable him make better decisions. A pragmatic sports scientist will not make decisions. The coach makes his decisions. But the pragmatic sports scientist will give him the objective and the forensic data about the individuals.
This is the only way of avoiding arbitrariness or trial and error. A team that is selected based on distilled or forensic facts of players will do better in terms of performance than the one put together based on trial and error. Siasia needs an NFF that is well organized to give him the pad on which to do his work. He needs spiritual intervention and hence must be prayerful. He needs the media and indeed all Nigerians to support him.
Nigeria is waiting for you to perform; to give us a team whose performances make us happy. Nigeria is yearning for a football team that is symbolic of her stature and size as a nation. This is the herculean task that awaits you. I wish you success.
Source:http://www.vanguardngr.com/
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