EAGLES CAN BE SUPER WITH AVERAGE PLAYERS

Osaze Experts say Samson Siasia can develop a quality national team without players in teams like Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea, writes PIUS AYINOR Gone were the days, indeed far gone were the days, Nigerian football fans watched their countrymen play against each other in big European competitions such as the UEFA Champion League or revered final like the English FA Cup at Wembley. Instead, Nigerians have learnt to pick European or South American heroes or make emotional attachments to players from Ghana, Ivory Coast or Cameroon when they play in such competitions these late seasons. It was great fun for Nigerians, for instance, when they watched celebrated Nwankwo Kanu attack a Chelsea defence that featured Celestine Babayaro in the 2002 English FA Cup finals. Before that game played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Nigerians had watched the pair of Kanu and Finidi George star for a victorious Ajax team in the European Champions League final. And there were other notable Nigerian players in such teams as Borussia Dortmund, PSG. But the scenario in the first quarter of 2011 is quite different. Mikel Obi is the only Super Eagles player playing regularly with a top team in top flight league. The other players are either playing with small teams in minor European leagues as in Greece or in teams battling against relegation in the English Premier League. Obafemi Martins, for instance, has just returned to England from a second- rate Rubin Kazan team to a Birmingham team struggling to breathe and survive the drop. Ex-England international and Nigeria’s sport ambassador John Fashanu believes in a strong Nigerian team emerging soon with what is available to the country. He said, “The Premiership is the biggest and most competitive league in the world today so whether a player is in West Ham or Birmingham does not count that much. In those teams they are not playing against second rate teams from other places. Instead, they are regularly featuring against Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. “The very important thing is that these Nigerians command great roles in those teams. They are very active competing sometimes twice in a week. It is better they are commanding super roles in those teams than being in a Barcelona squad without playing. That these players are not in Barcelona and Arsenal does not mean that they are low quality players and cannot raise the value of the Nigerian team. It would have been a lot better if they were with Real Madrid, Chelsea and United but it doesn’t always work that way. “You must understand that most of the players in the bigger teams are not better. It is a lot tougher for blacks to get into those big teams and indeed get any role with clubs in Europe. I hate to say it but it is the truth; it’s painful to admit it but that is the scenario for players from this part of the world. Very few are luckier. It is better to be an active player in West Brom than to sit on the bench every week at Old Trafford.” The view of Fashanu, a former attacker with Aston Villa, could water down the fear expressed by many Nigerians who argue that outstanding performance from these Nigerian players would get them into the likes of AC Milan and Liverpool. In an earlier interview with our correspondent a former Nigerian captain, Sunday Oliseh, said that improvement in the fortunes of the players was partly tied to the performance of the national team. The former Juventus of Italy midfielder said that the Nigerian players would return to big European teams when the profile of the Eagles rises as scouts keep their attention mainly on winning national teams for players. A former Nigerian international Sylvanus Okpala insists that the clubs Nigerian players currently star for can hardly affect the fortune of the national team. Okpala said, “I don’t think you can judge football from the perspective of clubs. If we can look back to Italia ‘90 and the players Cameroon used to achieve that feat you get to understand that it does not work that way. I have heard complaints that Eagles can’t move up with Samson Siasia because of where most of the players are now but it does not work that way. “In that World Cup outing the Cameroonians achieved that quarter final feat with players in second and third division teams in France. I can’t remember any in Barcelona or Manchester United . Building a solid national team depends on the attitude of the players and the coach and of course his character. “Or were there world stars in the Algerian team of the 1982 World Cup and of Morocco in 1986? We can even mould a quality team from the domestic league if we have a person that can coach and manage the players and the team effectively — a person that can build up the self esteem of these boys and know how to effectively use them with specific roles on the pitch. Compare those successful African World Cup teams to the star studded side of Ivory Coast that flopp ed in South Africa. The Ghanaians did well without Michael Essien because they had a team with the right attitude.” But would Nigerians wait forever to see the Eagles lift another trophy since the last one at Tunisia in 1994 when the generation of the current national coaches were the stars on the pitch? The rebuilding process since that quality outing appears to take forever as other teams like Ghana and Egypt climb higher while maintaining their quality runs. “With what we have now we may not win the African Nations Cup or any other event of that level but we can have a team that Nigerians can be proud of,” says Okpala. “Clemens Westerhof that remains our reference point was beaten at Algiers ‘90 by 5-1 in the opening game but he battled on and lost by just 1-0 to the same Algerian team in the final game less than two weeks. At Senegal ‘92 Eagles did not win the cup but Nigerians saw a vibrant team that could do well later and by 1994 the team was not only the best in Africa but one of the best in the world. It was because the administrators and team lost focus at USA ‘94 that Nigeria lost out. “Our players actually became big stars with the national team before they got bigger teams in Europe. Did we have any player in Ajax before Eagles began winning? Finidi George and Kanu only made it to that team afterwards. It was the national team that opened our players to the world and not the other way. The players in Europe were in smaller clubs until the Eagles blossomed and every European scout turned to Nigeria for players. Siasia can build this team up without big name clubs. When the team gets it right the bigger clubs will queue up for them. That’s the way it can work.”