Fall Out After Nigeria's Nations Cup Ouster

Nigeria has been eliminated from the African Cup of Nations to be hosted in Gabon next year. It was a sad day for millions of the Nigerian football fans after loosing to the Pharaohs of Egypt. The 7 times Champion team who last qualified in 2010.

This is the first time Nigeria will be missing out from the African Cup of Nations in two succession.  

Following the team's elimination from the competition, emotions were high from the average football fan to the media community. This situation has put enormous pressure on the Nigerian Football Federation board led by Amaju Pinnick.

Well I will give my personal view on the Super Eagles situation. I start by saying it is very important for us to look at the present state of our football situation within the context we find ourselves. 

To begin, Sunday Oliseh resigned from his position due to contractual breaches using his own very words. His resignation left the team in a precarious situation as it was close to the much anticipated back to back qualifiers against Egypt.

Samson Siasia the current under 23 manager along side Emmanuel Amuneke were called to salvage the situation. They were appointed on an interim basis to lead the Super Eagles for the rest of the qualifiers.

The first leg was played in Kaduna on the 25th of March 2016. The game started with both sides playing cautiously and by the end of the first half neither of the team had cancel each other out. 

The second half began with Nigeria dominating Egypt (To be honest, the Egyptian team were quite average but they were well drilled and organised). For the first time I was particularly happy with the way we played and I saw signs of improvement. 

Eventually Nigeria got the important goal from homed based player Oghenekaro Etebo. We were coasting on to victory until Mohamed Salah grabbed the equaliser at the death of the game. It was heart breaking for Nigerians but I did mention in a chat group that I was very pleased with the way we played against Egypt. I honestly believed that we could get a good result in Egypt considering the way we played in Kaduna.

Now fast forward to the second leg, the Pharaohs of Egypt started the game on a fast tempo. Egypt showed that they wanted to get a lead. The Super Eagles for a large spell dominated the game and the Egyptian looked more like the away team. In the second half, the game remained balanced until Egypt capitalised on the defensive frailties of the Nigerian side to score the only goal.  The game remained like that till the end.

Positives

There were signs of a free fluid football that we were used to in the past, particularly the second half performance in Kaduna. I believe with time the team will get better if we continue to build

Alex Iwobi has officially been capped which puts an end to England's interest.

Negatives

Samson Siasia was to quick to bring in his Under 23 players A game of that magnitude should have involved players with big stage experience.

In the game in Kaduna,  the technical crew should have switch to a defensive formation rather than the attacking formation since we were leading by a slim margin.Our indigenous manager needs to be tactically evolving during games ( I still prefer an indigenous manager )This have always been a vice of indigenous coaches.

Moving on

I think  Samson Siasia and Emmanuel Amuneke should be allowed to manage the team if we to judge by the game against Egypt. One can only imagine how cohesive team could been if Siasia had been in charge for a longer time. I was against his initial removal when he had his first stint . Moreover I believe we should continue to make use our indigenous manager until we become better. However there are news making the rounds that the NFF leadership are opting to go for a foreign manager...Hum I have reservations about this for the following reasons:

The NFF has  consistently over time owed salaries to the local coaches. So one wonders how they intend to fund the foreign manager. They said that funds raised from  the private sector would be used to prosecute the payments of salaries. Well I would have thought  that they could have extended the same  gesture to the indigenous managers. The minister for sport has already advised the NFF board to provide a full technical report of why we lost out of the African Cup of Nations . The minister went further to advise that the NFF will have to convince him why they need a foreign manager. What ever the case maybe we need to get things sorted before the World Cup qualifier.