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By Sylvester Kwentua
The dust is yet to settle since Nigeria’s national football team, the Super Eagles, got knocked out of the ongoing African Cup of Nations (AFCON) competition taking place in Cameroon, nevertheless, there has been an avalanche of theories, superstitions and other alleged factors for Nigeria’s loss.
Various reasons have been speculated in the media for why Nigeria lost out to Tunisia on Sunday night. A school of thought believes the Super Eagles lost because the President of Nigeria, Mohammadu Buhari put a call across to the team just before their game against Tunisia. Another school of thought believes the Super Eagles lost because the coach of the team, Austin Eguaveon, was technically inferior to his Tunisian counterpart and Eguaveon himself said this in one of post match address to the media.
A separate school of thought, however, argues that the Super Eagles lost out because of the same reason they lost out in the semi final of the last AFCON competition; lack of a quality goalkeeper!
While each person or group is entitled to his reasons, this write up intends to dissect those reasons to see if they hold water or not.
The Presidential call:
It was reported lavishly by most media that President Buhari put a call across to the Super Eagles few hours to their game against Tunisia, assuring them of the whole country’s support, while charging them to do the nation proud.
In all modesty, I want to say here that the President’s call was supposed to be a morale booster for the team, and nothing else. So, why people will assume that the president’s call carried an aura of bad luck, is what I find hard to understand? It, however, becomes worrisome to note that several Nigerian sporting teams and athletes have lost after calls from President Buhari. The anomaly dates back to the 1980s during Buhari’s stint as Military Head of State, leaving many analysts convinced that the carries an aura of bad luck.
On the other hand, almost every national team in Cameroon has gotten a call from their leaders and nothing significant was attached to the calls, so why some people attaching are attaching sentimental reasons to the president’s call, is a huge mystery. For the records, calls don’t play football, humans play football.
Austin Eguaveon’s technical inferiority:
From the day Austin Eguaveon was appointed on an interim basis to lead the Super Eagles to the nation cups, several people voiced against his appointment. Many people felt sacking the last coach just some weeks to a major competition was not a good calculation, while others simply felt judging by Eguaveon’s last stint with the Super Eagles, he was not the right man. Well, one thing Nigerians can be sure of now, is the level of Eguaveon’s readiness to lead the Super Eagles to glory.
In 2006, he also won all his group stage games but lost out in the knockout stages. Whether he is good technically or not, may not really be the issue here, what seems to be the issue here is if a Nigeria coach can ever repeat Stephen Keshi’s exploits with the Super Eagles. But as for Eguaveon, he still has a lot to learn about influencing a game. Thank Goodness, he knows this.
Lack of a quality goalkeeper:
Maduka Okoye is a good goalkeeper with the prospect of getting better, but I want to agree with some people who felt making him the first goalkeeper for an African competition, was suicidal. Okoye has not really had a feel of African football and will find it hard to have a great tournament. A Francis Uzoho would have been a better first choice.
What yardstick Eguaveon used in picking his team? One can’t really say, but Nigerian young ladies believe that Okoye deserves the spot for his looks. Many football experts argue that Francis Uzoho would have done much better with the ball that Okoye could not handle.
No matter what anyone says or does, Nigeria has been knocked out of a competition they were poised to win, and this should bother the football authorities enough to start preparing the team for the next major competition; the world cup, starting from the last stage of qualifiers to be played later this year.
