Super Eagles: A Faded Brand

Nigeria’s Super Eagles have fallen from the glory days of the 90s that they are today the ‘Super Chickens’. What must be done to get the Eagles flying high again?

On that fateful night, Uncle Femi rushed to my dad’s Peugeot 504 to get the car battery, connected to the TV set, it came alive, NEPA had earlier seized power, and, once again we continued with the Nigeria vs Italy at the second round stage of the FIFA World Cup, USA ’94.

The Nigeria Super Eagles as at then, was the first African country to be ranked fifth in global football and so far,the peak of their ratings. Present day, they have capsized like a damaged boat, thrown into a museum where they become an historical object.

The most senior national football team has been reduced to nothing but a laughing object, unfortunately they have gone from ‘Super ‘Eagles’ to ‘Super Chickens’.

What went wrong is the question on the lips of many Nigerians.

Exit of fine footballers like Rashidi Yekini, ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, Samson Siasia, Celestine Babayaro, Nwankwo Kanu and many others is not a blessing as we only produce average players without solid talents, a player who seems to be exemplary at the start of his career, starts to either get distracted, or become so rich, rude and nonchalant, hence we fail as a nation. However, these players give their best to club and nothing to country.

We have got to a stage where players want to adorn the jersey for show off or to attract better clubs, most of them do not have the nation’s interest at heart. Sports psychologists and administrators need to repair their damaged impression and approach to national assignments.

The Nigeria Football Federation need to revive the Super Eagles and take them back to the glory days.

The 2013 Africa Cup of Nations was won by proxy, and I don’t believe the Eagles were so good. They did not deserve to win that tournament. I was there from start to finish. The team was poor and lucky in most of their games. As a Nigerian I’m happy we won, but after winning what happened, we collapsed yet again, and could not defend the trophy as the team did not even qualify for Equatorial Guinea 2015.

Managed with a slim chance to qualify for the World Cup, the squad to the World Cup and Confederations Cup was the worst in the history of the Super Eagles, that squad will be easily defeated by a combination of Kano Pillars and Enyimba best legs.

Their performance was poor. We cannot always rate the Eagles on mere luck. It is unacceptable.

Nigeria is blessed with a lot of football academies, as a matter of fact, it is the in-thing now, the NFF should go back to the roots, get genuine scouts, regulate these football academies properly, get fully involved.

We are a people of over 170million and getting 30 solid players out of that should not be a big deal, players should be given trials from time to time, let us end godfatherism in players selection, let us be real if we want to improve. Let us also Provide an enabling environment to all and sundry.

Kudos and many thanks to the former NFF president Sani Lulu Abdullahi in conjunction with Festus Onigbinde for the fantastic idea of the U13 national team. These set of kids moved to the U17 and later won the FIFA World Cup in 2013, the same set won the African Youth Championship, that is passing a message, right?.

Shamefully, the NFF has scrapped the U13 national team, I always ask myself, but why?  Whatever happened to continuity, my heart bleeds for our football.

And to the coaches, stop selling players as sentiments will not win you tournaments, solid talents is what you need, recently.

A certain player was heavily criticised because he is based in China, but truly he had a good match, he scored, but realistically he is not a Super Eagles material, there are better players who can dominate the field well and bring back the glory.

Must it be foreign-based players all the time? Big clubs and big names do not play football as far as I’m concerned.

Aderonke Ogunleye-Bello