Nigeria is blessed with abundant football talents, untapped, raw and crude which are yet to be refined into good article due to the cluelessness of majority of our local coaches.
Football coaching as we all know has gone scientific and ‘not’ a little bit but much education is required to be able to keep up with the pace at which Global football coaching is moving. I think every player should help themselves too, get some self-guide, take some time out, and learn your art.
Practically, the Flying Eagles early exit from the 2015 FIFA U20 World Cup got a lot of people angry, but looking inwardly you cannot help but fault the entire technical crew, obviously the talents are there for all to see. People always raise their games against the champion and you cannot be successful all the time, but there is much more than winning laurels in coaching with sound technicality and ingenuity.
Nigeria has only graded 400 CAF ‘C’ License coaches, Ghana with lower population has graded more than 2000, Egypt more than 8000 and we are still here struggling in Nigeria, no doubt there are intelligent Coaches and why not, Coaches too should train themselves since that is what they do as a profession.
Falcons Coach, Edwin Okon is the depiction of a typical Nigerian Coach without any foreign experience but took the team to the world cup, for those who watched the game against Sweden, Okon should have won but did not use the fresh attackers who sat on the bench all through, for reasons best known to him. While other attackers laboured, the substitution never came, of course I am not a coach but it is common sense. Like I said deeds, charisma, simple courteous attitude matters a lot in the life of a Coach. Passionate Coaching without man-management is tantamount to a monumental failure.
Their major problems include and not limited to selection problems, inability to study opponents, inability to make right substitutions during competitive games, inflexibility when it comes to their mindset in making adjustments in the process of a game, often times they find it hard to give clear directives as to what a player is expected to do on the field of play.
Some coaches have been accused severally of taking bribes from football Agents to inject the players’ they want to sell into the team. Some also introduce players to agents and force players to sign for their Agent. It should stop or else better talents will not be given the chance at the expense of the national success.
Stephen Keshi as a Coach won a trophy and made it look like a fluke when we could not qualify for the same tournament barely 24months after, a team was built and right there and then, they were scattered making us to start all over again, it all goes back to the Coach. If you are a success your name will be attached to it and vice versa.
We have had enough abuse of the word ‘going back to the drawing board’ there is no drawing board, rather, draw yourself, and become useful.
Sentiments should be taken out of selection processes ‘this one no call me or greet me when my wife born I no go carry am for my team,’ literarily, a Coach saying, his player did not acknowledge him and he will not give him a chance, lame and useless excuses. It is bad for football.
By and large, the country is not deficient of talents but the deficient of technically experienced coaches, on their own part, when players make small money they become overly unbearable and it affects the entire team, it is left for a coach to curb such player or find a better alternative, you are the coach, you are in charge and why not take charge. As a Coach you lose it the moment you cannot man-manage your team and manage the ego of your players.
The League Management Company should make sure that all the head coaches of football clubs are CAF license graded, as it was indicated in the LMC rule book. When we have this in our football clubs players can be assured of good coaching.
Administrators have a lot of blames in the issues surrounding inefficiency of coaches, the Pinnick led NFF took some Coaches to England for Capacity training, commendable but not enough. The NFF should provide the enabling grounds, right facilities, atmosphere and resources to ensure coaches get the necessary badges for them because there is no shortcut to coaching. Get FIFA badged Coaches to join the technical crew of several football teams.
Finally, I hope all coaches can enrol for proper training and refresher courses; endeavour to acquire your coaching certificates and badges. A coach should not be talking as if he is in a Beer parlour, because they mould champions and are expected to be well behaved.
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