Ladan Bosso exposes a more profound problem 

By Ayo Akinfe

It is no surprise to me that Nigerian football fans are baying for the blood of Ladan Bosso, the Flying Eagles coach, after the disastrous outing of the team in the recent U-21 African Championship in Rwanda. It is almost certain that he will be sacked as soon as the team returns to the country but while we are calling for the man’s head, are ignoring the wider problem? 

Nobody is in doubt that coming third in the African Youth Championships is simply not good enough for Nigeria. What makes it even worse to stomach is that Bosso inherited the U-17 World Cup winning team so wonderfully put together by the late Yemi Tella. That team delighted the whole world with its eye-catching football in Korea two years ago. 

Bosso won a bronze medal and qualified for the 2009 World Youth Championship in Rwanda, which most Nigerians consider inadequate. Before the tournament started, just looking at our line-up which contains players like Chrisantus McCauley, Lukman Haruna and Rabiu Ibrahim to mention a few, Nigerian football fans were of the opinion that winning gold was a mere formality. 

Personally, I acknowledge the fact that one simply cannot win everyday. No matter how good your team is, there will simply be occasions when events, injuries, refereeing decisions, bad luck, unavoidable mistakes, inexplicable errors, etc conspire against you and defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory. Had this been the case in Rwanda, it would have been easy to defend Mr Bosso but alas, it is impossible to come up with any defence for the man. 

In Rwanda, our boys played like they had never met each other before, they were so disjointed that using the word team to describe them would be inappropriate and it clear to even the most optimistic that they were badly coached. This is not the first time that a talented group of players have been assembled in a Nigerian national team and gone out and operated like 11 individuals. 

From what I saw in Rwanda, Ladan Bosso’s team was no better than Alphonsus Dike’s U-17 that got thrashed 3-0 by lowly Benin, Godwin Izilien’s woeful 2005 Golden Eaglets or Godwin Uwua’s pathetic 2007 Flying Eagles. To be perfectly honest, the senior team under Amodu Shaibu has not played much better in recent games. 

Over the years, Nigerian fans have been repeatedly treated to displays in which their teams cannot string two passes together, team-mates are incapable of finding one another on the pitch and the three sections of the team operate like they just met each other on the way to the stadium. Experience has shown us that if you give these same players to a man who knows that he is doing, like Clemence Westerhoff, Bora Mutiolovic, Yemi Tella or Samson Siasia, you get different results. 

While it is easy to blame the coaches for these poor displays, the number of times it has happened must surely raise questions about the recruitment process. I doubt if anyone can question the fact that Alphonsus Dike and Ladan Bosso were clearly not up to the tasks assigned them and surely it is pertinent to ask how they got their jobs in the first place. 

Over recent years, a lot has been made of the need to appoint local coaches to manage our national teams but it appears that the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) is unaware that this entails going beyond offering people jobs. From what we have seen of our local coaches, only Yemi Tella and Samson Siasia have convinced me that they are up to the job of managing national teams. 

We have world class players and if we want to get the best out of them, it is pertinent that the coaches are of the same calibre too. Nigeria is never going to win anything when it has the likes of Ladan Bosso managing our teams. I challenge the NFF to tell us what made them think he was qualified for the job in the first place. 

Getting to manage a national team should only be open to coaches who have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are up to the job. In my opinion, this should involve going on international coaching courses, spending no less than two years in elite leagues in which the players ply their trade, showing they are capable of managing the big egos of superstars and being able to talk the public through a game. 

Football is no different from any aspect of Nigerian life in that if you do not have competent people in sensitive positions, you will have problems. As a nation, we have to live with the realities of today’s competitive world. We have to train our personnel up to international standards before entrusting them with lofty tasks. If we do not have anyone available, we must be honest enough to admit it and look for a capable expatriate. 

Our NFF must as a matter of urgency now take it upon itself to train up some of the coaches on its books. Until that is done, we have to swallow our pride and admit that our people are simply not good enough. 

Many of these so-called coaches we have would not qualify to coach European U-10 teams. How on earth you appoint such people and expect to win silverware is beyond me. In other sectors of our economy, we are happy for instance to bring in Western oil companies where we lack local expertise. I fail to see why the same should not be the case with football.

Robot  # 1 | 31.01.2009 23:38

Ladan Bosso exposes a more profound problem By Ayo Akinfe It is no surprise to me that Nigerian football fans are baying for the blood of Ladan Bosso, the Flying Eagles coach, after the disastrous outing of the team in the recent U-21 African Championship in Rwanda. It is almost certain that he will be sacked as soon as the team returns to the country but while we are calling for the man’s head, are ignoring the wider problem? Nobody is in doubt that coming third in the African Youth Championships is simply not good enough for Nigeria. What makes it even worse to stomach is that Bosso inherited the U-17 World Cup winning team so wonderfully put together by the late Yemi Tella. That team delighted the whole world with its eye-catching football in Korea two years ago. Bosso won a bronze medal and qualified for the 2009 World Youth Championship in Rwanda, which most Nigerians consider inadequate. Before the tournament started,...Read the full article.

Anioma777  # 2 | 01.02.2009 13:01

So Nigeria came third big deal!!!! This is not the first time an U-17 national team who conquered the world at their age group failed to win their continents' championship at U-20 level. They where just not good enough at this level. I watched all their games apart from the defeat by South Africa. Ghana the winners where just in another class. The players looked like they where still living on their U-17 World Cup past glory..... In Nigeria it is always easy to blame one of our local coaches. Instead of blaming the coach always what about the bufoons who now masquerade as NFF but still administer Nigerian football like they did when they where called NFA. It is sad to hear Nigerians in 2009 still having this INFERIORITY COMPLEX MINDSET that anything foreign is a quick cure to our problems. To be honest even if Alex Ferguson could have been in charge of the Nigerian U-20 team the outcome would have still been the same. Also we are always in a RUSH..chopping and changing and expecting results. Alex Ferguson for all is excellent record at Man Utd, it took him 5 years before he won his first trophy and the rest his history. Also Managing a national side at any level is not easy since you are not with the players on a daily basis. The fact of the matter is the the NFF is a corrupt and imbecilic organisation that will hire a coach based on their favorites and not provide the adequate facilities or training needed for indigenous coaches. Below is an example of the childish attitude our incompetent NFF:- Just a few days ago when Nigeria lost to South Africa in the group stages, an NFF official was saying "Ladan Bosso better win his next match or he will be sacked. I hear he has been boasting about his exploits. If he does not we will sack him". Another one was after the debacle of Herr Berti Vogts, and the NFF was looking through a list of Nigerian coaches. One of them I think it was Taiwo Ogunjobi or some muppet at the top saying, "Keshi is a good coach but we feel he will be too stubborn to handle". When you have a football authority that can make such statements how do you expect to win much. NIGERIA HAS ABLE AND CAPABLE COACHES THAT GIVEN THE RIGHT SUPPORT AND ENVIRONMENT CAN COMPETE WITH ANY COACH ON EARTH. WE NEED TO CURE OURSELVES OF THIS "INFERIORITY COMPLEX THAT WE CANNOT SUCCEED WITHOUT GETTING A FOREIGN COACH. A friend once said to me stupidly "Oh but England has a foreign coach". My response was what is good for England is not neccesary good for Nigeria. We may get expatriates in other professions, but in all my travels and having lived and worked in 4 continents, Nigeria has enough manpower and money to train its own people to be able to handle 100% owned Nigerian oil ( upstream or down stream,Electricity and Construction...etc. Many Nigerians are so insular in their thinking,evil and ignorant that they dont know many developed nations infrastructure built in the last 10-20 yaers have had some Nigerians involved. So tell me if you have these Nigerians as part of these projects why can we not get them on board. The same in football we now have 2-3 generations of ex players who have played at the highest level and now in management, so why would you need a half baked foreigner who will not even be able to manage a ( bottle top table soccer team ) in their own country. When will Nigerian administrators start BELIEVING IN AND SUPPORTING THEIR OWN.:sad: