Former Nigerian midfielder, Henry Nwosu has appealed to the Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr to scout for more quality players in the Nigeria Professional Football league (NPFL) that can be of great asset to the senior national team.
Nwosu stated this in a chat with Completesports.com, where he said that the NPFL which was known for producing good players in the past has been giving low attention by Rohr.
During the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, only the trio of John Noble, Anayo Iwuala, and Adeleke made Rohr’s list. However, Iwuala was the only player that featured against the Squirrels of Benin and Crocodile of Lesotho.
He also played a cameo role in the team’s 1-0 loss against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon in an international friendly game played in Austria recently.
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“It is very important that we should give the Nigeria Professional Football league (NPFL) players more opportunity in the Super Eagles.
“I believe there are quality players in the NPFL that can add more value to the senior national team but have not been tapped by Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr. Yes, he has invited the likes of Iwuala, Adeleke, and Noble to the team but only Iwuala has been made to show his talent.”
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Please let us hear word, common Hungary played well against Portugal. Can your so called local boys play with the dirty structures you have there in Nigeria. Please.
@Presh,pls permit me to use this word for on you IGNORANCE !!! Well most of you just started watching football and following epl,la liga etc. My brother bad as it may be,our league still has quality players that just needed like few friendly matches to gel.Well,i started watching Nigerian League late 80s of Abiola babes,shooting stars,ranchers bees of kaduna etc. I could remember vividly when Daniel amokachi was in ranchers bees playing against rasheed yekini of abiola babes in FA CUP final,my brother it was fire.Clemens westahof scouted for raw talents in the nigeria league those years and it paid well for everyone.Most of you will not agree with me,but our league currently has raw talents that can win afcon if the present coach can give them chance.Thank you all
@SAMUEL, Fafafa fowl? God forbid! Let them win common CHAN first, then we can talk of AFCON. It seems you are not living in the real world. These talents where are they? Right now there is no Nigerian team remaining in CAF Club competitions. None even made the group stage of common CAF Champions League. Are these not the players you are referring to or are there others we do not know of? The plain truth is the quality of our league is very poor. I subscribe to NPFL TV and watch most of the games. The players tactically are not it & that is because the coaching at club level is very poor. We still play like we are in the 1980’s or 90’s.
Am not a kid in the game, and I know exactly what you mean, have been watching football since 1985, but am fed up with the structure of the domestic league. I know the Amokachis came from Ranchers Bess name it, but no league right now.
@Samuel that’s actually a dream that has no chance of coming true. Nigeria League in the 80s could easily be compared to leagues in Europe in terms of standard of play. Organization was okay and league where 95% better run than now. Anyone talking about picking players who still can not qualify Nigeria for African Nations Championship which is meant for players who are playing professionally in their home countries to represent Nigeria in world cup qualifying games, Nations Cup and world Cup just doesn’t live in reality. Mr. Nwosu is just letting sentiment be-cloud his judgment. You can not invite players to the National team in 2021 based on Daniel Amokachi’s form playing for Ranchers Bee in 1988 or Henry Nwosu’s ACB form in 1986.
National teams are not polishers of talents, the club are where that is done. National teams are also not avenue to showcase players for transfer to foriegn teams, it is for players who have already distinguished themselves and have shown that they are ready to compete. It’s not a place for talent, it’s only for complete footballers. Let’s stop dragging Nigeria backward with all these mediocre ideas.
Talent with no structure will amount to nothing. One truth we fails to acknowledge is that local sport structure in Nigeria started collapsing immediately we started this present democrazy.
Our national league clubs suffers in the hands of many states gorvnors who sees no reason why money should be spent on football.
Shooting star of Oyo state died naturally during the reign of lamidi adeshina and up till now no gorvnor has been being back the glory of that football clubs.
Before transition in 1999,many state clubs depends on state government for financial support except for few that were be own by private organizations.
That was the structure of our league and truly the era of military reign really support not just football but every other sport both at state level and national financially well.
Since 1999 transition little or no attention is being given state football by so many state gorvment. Clubs are strugling to pay salary of players and coaches.
I agree clubs are not suppose to depend on gorvment for financial strength but really in Nigeria football has actually been supported at all levels by the government, so sudden withdrawals of this support has lead to the death of Nigeria league.
Even NFF is finding it difficult to fund our various national teams activities not to talk about state football club.
Yes,i agree with you all on your comments.When Enyimba won Caf champions league twice in 2003 and 2004 or so,how many of the players where regular in super eagles? Only two or three ( Vincent enyeama,dele aiyenugba) and one of the defenders like that.See our local league has been having problems right from those back years and coaches that came always pick some boys from the league.Bonfere jo,bert vogts,libreghts,amodu shuaib,siasia,keshi etc tried some home based and they gave their accounts very well.
I can pick at least 5 to 6 players currently in our league that can stand our foreign based players any day anytime.Well i hope one day things will change for better.Thank you
Please name them
I also can name 5 or 6 teams in our current domestic League that can stand Chelsea, Man City and Barcelona any day anytime.
That’s serial capping
“Henry Nwosu has appealed to the Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr to scout for more quality players in the Nigeria Professional Football league (NPFL) that can be of great asset to the senior national team.
“It is very important that we should give the Nigeria Professional Football league (NPFL) players more opportunity in the Super Eagles.
“I believe there are quality players in the NPFL that can add more value to the senior national team but have not been tapped by Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr..”
Quality can not be used in the same sentence with NPFL and it is ignorant to believe there are quality players in the NPFL that can add more value to the senior national team but have not been tapped.
Let me translate what you just said, “I don’t know if there are quality players in NPFL”.
Personally I do not believe Ndidi, Simon, Chukueze and Oshimen are quality players because I know they are.
You should be able to name those players in NPFL who can add more value to the Eagles.
Sentiment is the reason Nigeria is in this state. Dee Henry, our coach Gernot Rohr played football just about the same time you were playing in the 70s and 80s. He, just like so many other of his teammates went into coaching and management while you and your teammates decided to sit on the outside and watch Nigeria Football die a slow death only to come in from time to time to suggest sacking the coach to replace him with some indigenous coach you “believe” will do a better job or flood the Eagles with NPFL players you “believe” would add more value without being able to name one. Which in reality means *NONE*.
You should currently be one of the policy maker in the NFF/NFA , LMC or coaching a team in NPFL and polishing those raw talents and turning them into complete footballers that are ready for National team duties. No current NPFL player is ready at the moment so stop letting sentiment take control of your judgment, you know better.
Thumbs up @NgrEaglesfan.
How many times have we said these exact same things you’ve just said here and got called names.
If not for personal interests, I really dont understand how anybody would compare our league and its products in the 80s and early 90s to 2021
In the African cup winners cup alone 4 Nigerian clubs played in 4 consecutive finals between 1988 – 1991, by 1995 5 Nigerian clubs had played in the final of the competition is 8 years
In the CAF Cup between 1992 and 1994 Shooting stars and Bendel Insurance won it.
In the WAFU cup, in 9 years between 1989 and 1998, 5 Nigerian clubs won it.
In the CAF champions cup, between 1988 and 1994, 2 Nigeria clubs reached the finals
What am I saying in essence, Almost every year between 1986 and 1998, at least 1 Nigerian club will get to the final of continental competitions. Our clubs and league players proved they were up there…measuring up and proving better than their colleagues from other parts of the continent. That was a League. That is they type of league that has quality. Players will get signed directly from sharks to Ajax Amsterdam, from Julius Berger straight to Standard Liege, from NNB straight to Nantes. That is the type of league that can produce players for the national team. Even at that, our 1994 AFCON winning squad had just 1 homebased out of 22 squad members, while our world cup squad had NONE….ZERO. Will we say our league today is better than it was in the early 90s for us to ignore our best players in Europe and start using our national team to market mediocres..?
Fast forward to 2021, pls when last did Nigerian clubs get to the final of any continental competition…? Actually since Enyimba won the CAF CL almost 20 years ago, only 1 club has reached the final of continental competitions…..in the last 10 years…NONE…ZERO. Infact getting to the group stages is what we pray for nowadays……and then someone says there is “QUALITY” in the league…??! Pls where is it…? The quality that cannot get clubs to the group stages of competitions….? The quality that cannot get our CHAN team to the medal zone consistently…? The quality that doesnt guarantee us qualification for CHAN (we have only qualified 3 times since the tournament started 12 years ago). The quality that cannot get players to sign directly from here into even Belgian league..? Please where is all that quality…someone should kindly show us where the quality is.
Did we not see Enyimba play in the 2nd tier CAF CC this year…? Did we not all see how amateurish they looked when competing with their mates on the continent…? What value will those ones add to our National team that we don’t already have…? How many minutes in the national team did it take us to see that a Portuguese 2nd division player Abraham Marcus is heaven to earth than the overhyped $1m rated MVP of the NPFL Anayo Iwuala…?
Because we want to sell Iwuala we have denied the likes of Ejuke and Henry a place in the SE…who are we deceiving..? Whose pockets are we lining…? To blazes with this homebased farce. Even the Falcons that just competed in the US summer series did we not see it was the foreign ones that distinguished themselves…? How many of the homebased amongst them gave any performance that caught the eye…?
All these people should let us hear word and allow the coach to do his damn job. Algeria has a far more competitive league than ours, yet no one forces their coach to field home-based players or any player for that matter. Nobody queries him for having a team largely dominated by foreign-born and foreign-based players. Morocco too has even a better league than Algeria, infact they have won CHAN back to back, yet nobody forces home-based players into their national team. As a matter of fact they are also dominated by foreign-borns and foreign-based players.
It is Nigeria with its eyesore of a league that must field home-based players by force, because some people want to sell market.
Check-out all Nigerian players making waves in Europe today both the ones already in the national team and the ones who are yet to be called up, how many of them are products of the league….almost none. How many of them used the national team as a pedestal to get to Europe…almost none.
Now look at all the home-based who have been “given opportunity” in the super eagles in the last 10 years, how many of them made it to Europe, not even mainstream europe, lets just say outside the top 10 leagues, talk more of even having anything like a stellar career…almost none. And they say they are quality…?
So why the hell are we deceiving ourselves…?? Tufia…!!
This is a million dollar piece, God bless you!
With all the epistle you have typed, and the case you have made, please what are the achievements of your so called Foreign based. Just qualifying us to tournaments and not winning it. Abi is that the goal now. last time i checked the Home based came third at the Chan games with a coach who enjoyed watching our league.(please what is your PE teacher doing), in 2018 we came in 2nd, also with a coach that knows the league in and out. So please tell your lazy PE teacher to go out there and scout for players. There are some talented players in that country even if you not attached to a club. So please stop stop ranting and let us hear word. The ones that injected local players won the Nations cup for us. So until your PE teacher beats that then yo can have something to talk about. Apart from that go get busy
Hahahaha…pig mouth, so after the Nations cup which of the home-based went on to have a stellar career in Europe, Africa or even in the NPFL…LMAO. Keep deceiving yourselves home-based won you the nations cup…LMAO. If you have sense, your brain would tell you that the only home-based that proved a point (Godfrey Oboabona) got to the Semifinals of CAF competitions back-to-back with a club like Sunshine stars, before getting invited into the national team……now that is quality. It is not a surprise he was the only one that managed to play at the level of Turkish league for just about 3 years. The rest couldnt even last 1 full season in a reasonable league in Europe and faded away within 2 years. Those are the kinds of riff-raffs you and your backward thinking family memebers want to populate our National team with. Show me a Nigerian club that will get to the semifinals of CAF competitions back to back and I will show you players that deserve to be called up to the National team. Keshi deceived himself home-based were good enough because of the AFCON fluke and started fielding as many as 3 or 4 of them in one match and that was where his downfall started from. Even the flash in the pan that scored in the final ended up not being good enough to go to the world cup a year later….LMAO. Your $1m overated 5 goals in 2 seasons Anayo Iwuala has been huffing and puffing in SE colours with zero meaningful contributions all these while, a Portugese 2nd division player played just 15 mins and the whole nations was agog at what a wonderful player he is….but useless longathroaths like you want us to deny those who are deserving of a place because you want to sell mediocres that wouldnt last even 2 years at a higher level…..LMAO.
Why are you suddenly shifting the home-based responsibility to the PE teacher…? LMAO. What has suddenly happened to your 100 cap ex-international assistant SE coach…? LMAO is he not good enough to lead the CHAN team again..? LMAO. Is his 100 caps not enough for him to even coach at the world cup again…? Tell your home based to start qualifying for their own tournaments too like the foreign-based, then we will take them seriously…..that in itself is a goal.
Home based did not win any nations cup for you. Stop deceiving yourself. The players that won the AFCON for us are likes of Enyeama, Ambrose, Mikel, Moses, Emenike, Ideye where the ones that won the AFCON for Nigeria, that’s why they made the CAF team of the tournament, minus these guys we couldnt have won the AFCON, they were not home-based. Stop telling yourselves lies. The fact that Keshi went to the tournament with 15 solid foreign-based players and 7 dead-weights didn’t make them win the AFCON for us. Our starting line ups still always had as many as 9-10 foreign-based. Homebased didnt win any AFCON for you….LMAO. The last time home-based won AFCON for you was in 1980.
The national team is not a place to market 3-match wonder home-based players that will fade away after 1 year….LMAO. Go and develop your domestic football.
Swears you just lack wisdom……why on earth would you make a comparisons….
Check out chukwueze,onauchu,balogun,aribo,ndidi,iheanacho……
You be ode I swear @ kenneth…
And please since the names you have mentioned having being playing together, what have they gotten us. Kindly tell us. Because you are quick to call me names. How many years have they being playing together. Last time i checked this same names lost to Madagascar. This same group couldn’t get us to the second round of the World cup. So, why are you hyping ordinary players.
You too name your so-called super star home-based players who are better than them, that should be in the SE instead of them.
The last time I also checked, your homebased players got walloped by ordinary Togo home-based not once but twice, didnt qualify for CHAN and got eliminated from Wafu by capeverde homebased a country that is not up to a local govt in Nigeria. The last time I also checked, none of your local league clubs could reach the group stages of CAF cL…the only one that managed to play in CAF CC, the best team in your so-called star studded league, struggled to win matches on home soil and was getting walloped left right and centre away…..LMAO.
If the foreign ones couldn’t get us to WC 2nd round is it these your homebased that is chopping 4 from togo and 3 from El-merriekh of Sudan that will…?? Or was it homebased players Keshi used to get to WC 2nd round too…LMAO….??
Or what is even your mumu point..? That we should forget about all the best Nigerian players playing in Europe and start using homebased players…?? LMAO.
Will not waste my time arguing needlessly with you. All i know is the NFF needs to change the PE teacher we have, all the excuses and epistle you keep giving us here has not won us any title in the 5 year reign of Gernot Rorh. i will keep advocating for some home based players to be injected in the team. I can say some of your foreign based need to come back home, because they have nothing to show that they deserve to be playing abroad.
Hahahahaha…mumu talk as usual….LMAO. Foreign players dont deserve to be playing abroad….LMAO. It is your homebased players that cannot pass trials in Sudan that deserve to be playing abroad….LMAO.
Go and drag the foreign-based players back home na. LMAO. Go and drag all them osimhen, iheanacho, Ndidi etc back home because your home-based are better than them….LMAO
If your guadiolas had not been failing to qualify for ordinary AFCON and dragged us down to 70th position in the world, the PE teacher wouldnt have needed to start building a team from the foundation taking so long to win AFCON….LMAO. Because of the failure of your overrated guadiolas, the PE teacher has only been able to attend 1 AFCON in 5 years and still he almost won it.
You are better off licking @jimmy’s feet, because everytime your open your mouth to talk, everywhere gets polluted.
It has always been the culture that foreign based professionals have dominated our senior national team right from early 90’s. The truth is that Nigeria has always had talents… How these talents find their way to show to the world what they can do is another thing altogether. Our NPFL is underfunded, lacking good corporate sponsors including solid TV deals, which only Super Sport has been the one doing some real help with viewership over the years… Our Super Eagles is still going to be largely dominated by foreign based pros for the forseeable future… HOWEVER, we should continue to encourage hardwork among league players by inviting one or two deserving ones among our callups for games from time to time… Shooting the NPFL down including all its players will only make us continue to embarrass ourselves begging foreign borns to turnout for us from time to time… Our hub of talent still remains the NPFL. Talents abound in the league… only often, if you got no mystic NFF reach and connections… a lesser player may get called up instead of one clearly more talented! I do not even feel Iwuala is the best amongst his age bracket plying their trade in the NPFL… But I will pass him surely, as one of those with real talent to be encouraged! One love…
One thing I have so far observed from the arguements and counter arguments on this topic is the inability of the proponents of ‘forceful inclusion of home based players in SE’ to name just a few of the home based players they so much clamour for. Interestingly even Henry Nwosu who is the ‘Clamourer in Chief’ of this group glaringly fell short in this regard.
Many claim their are talents in the NPFL and Rohr only needs to go out there to spot them, but I must say these assertions do not hold water, based on facts at my disposal.
On several occassions especially during his first tenure, the Nigerian sports media usually had reports of sighting Rohr in Agege township stadium watching matches involving MFM. By so doing, he didn’t only watch MFM, but must have also watched and scouted players from MFM’s opponents. Rohr was also reportedly sighted in Port- Harcourt watching matches, yet his accusers say he doesn’t monitor the local league. If these reports are anything to go by, then the question Rohr’s accusers should have asked is ‘ why did Rohr not invite home based guys to camp ‘.
From what I have read on this thread so far, it is obvious that many only pretend to follow the NPFL, but they aren’t conversant with recent developments in the Nigerian game.
Let me quickly say this here; there are talents in Nigeria that can be groomed to become national team materials, no doubt, but there are very little or no talent in the NPFL. Anyone may choose to argue this assertion, but I will explain my perspective to this.
Gone are the days when the NPFL produced players that walked straight into the starting lineup of decent teams in main stream Europe. This happened in the late 1980s and 1990s, a thirteen year period that saw the likes of Finidi George, Chidi Nwanu, Dan Amokachi, Ben Iroha etc show their stuff in the Nigerian league and got signed-up in Belgium and Holland respectively, whether they had a Super Eagles call up or not. Their performances in the local league was a major yardstick that influenced their transition. This was a period our league had quality in terms of players and fan base.
From year 2000 upwards , there was a sharp drop in these type of transitions as our league suffered in terms of availability of quality players and fan base due to the mass exodus of soccer players to foreign clubs and the proliferation of foreign leagues into our TV market. Between Years 2000 and 2010, apart from Taye Taiwo(2004) and later Ahmed Musa (2010), I can’t remember any major player from the Nigerian league that moved to mainstream Europe and did well instantly. Even Seyi Olofinjana and Yakubu Aiyegbeni had to prove themselves in Norway and Israel respectively before they finally landed in England.
Interestingly this was the period Enyimba did so well on the continent and produced the likes of Eric Ejiofor, Romanus Orjinta, Obinna Nwaneri, Victor Ezeji, Damien Udeh, David Tyavkase, Stephen Nworgu
and several other players in Rangers Int’l and Julius Berger, but the farthest these guys went in their playing careers were Israel, Norway, Tunisia, Sudan etc. Such is the decline our league suffered in terms of quality within this period. This era was totally different from the previous era when we look at players making it straight into mainstream Europe and it all boils down to availability of the type of quality the leagues in mainstream Europe so desire.
Let’s look at the current era (2011 to date). This era has witnessed the proliferation of soccer academies all over the country and unfortunately for the NPFL these academies are in the business of soccer for profitability and not social responsibility, hence they groom their players not for the NPFL, but for teams that can pay their player’s bill’s in any part of the world.
We may checkout the number of Nigerian groomed players who never tasted action in the NPFL, never featured for any of the national teams, but currently played in the back waters of European football in countries like Slovakia, Albania, Finland , Latvia and so on. Trust me, they are in hundreds.
The smartest of these academies have established player pathways through which their best products get to these obscure leagues and if they do well, they may end up in better leagues or mainstream Europe within some years.
This explains why quality players like Moses Simon and Samuel Kalu had to pass through Slovakia before they were snapped up by Genk, but today they both play in a top 5 league. There are several other examples in the likes of Peter Olayinka, Terem Moffi , Chidera Ejuke etc.
The bitter truth about this trend is that top soccer agents currently do not look the way of the NPFL in their talent sourcing activities. If your player must be seen, you must get him into any of the national teams(U 17, U 20, U 23 or CHAN Eagles) or get him into Europe at all cost, even if it’s an obscure league. Chances are that even the obscure leagues in Europe can be monitored on TV and their player’s statistics are much more reliable than what you will get from the NPFL. I have met and seen several talented footballers who will rather not play in the NPFL and bid their time to get a contract in the back waters of Europe. What does this trend portend for the NPFL? The obvious truth is that the majority of those guys you see in the NPFL aren’t just good enough. If they are, they will be playing in Albania, Latvia or Slovakia rather than play in the NPFL.
This trend leaves the NPFL with the best of the rest. Unfortunately, even within the NPFL, pay and play has become the order of the day, so the best of the rest may not even get to play if their agent doesn’t settle.
Does this explain why Rohr didn’t see any quality player to invite all the while? May be!
Does this also tell why Henry Nwosu and his proponents of quota for home based players couldn’t even suggest names? May be!
This explains my earlier assertion that their are soccer talents within Nigeria but there are very few or no national team materials within the NPFL.
Wow….that’s all I can say to this. May your waters of wisdom never run dry.
27….that is the number of home-based players Rohr has called up to the national team till date…the number of NPFL players who have used the SE as a launch pad to move out of the country. Where are they today…Nowhere to be found…not even a Junior Lokosa who was record top scorer in the NPFL, struggled in Tunisia and is currently annonymous in Tanzanian league where he signed for simba fc?
What about all the ones Keshi groomed…? Many months of camping, 7 international grade A friendlies to exposed them, before only Oboabona could measure up to SE standard (forget Sunday Mba…that one was just a 3 match wonder, the remaining caps he had for Nigeria were as uneventful as the ones he had b4 his AFCON luck). Ejike Uzoenyi couldnt measure up at Mamelodi Sundowns and Bidvest in SA league. Oshaniwa had a good 1 season in Scotland, Gabriel ‘Nigerian Yaya Toure’ Ruben play only 6 months at Boavista or wherever, Kwambe was in US 2nd division and has returned to the NPFL for about a season or 2 now, Slow as snail Eguekwe, was in Finland for 2 seasons or thereabout. Gbolahan salami-finland and then saudi arabia or wherever . Summary of it all, by the year 2015 (2 years later) they had all melted away into oblivion…..just 2 years after. Apparently, what we saw them play was what you call ‘playing out your skin’, playing beyond your elastic limit, playing above their bestest best….that you cannot do for long as a footballer.
A whole year of camping, training, investment in international friendly matches to expose home-base players and force quality on them by force went up in flames within 2 years, whereas Ambrose Efe is still playing in scotland till date, Mikel is still in England, Moses, Ideye, even Ahmed Musa and a good number of the 2013 squad are still alive and kicking or still played at an appreciable level till 2-3 years ago, yet the ones who were classed as “young” raw diamonds back then have been interred football wise long before them.
The ones who use the SE as platform to jet out dont even reach anywhere, but the ones who didnt use the SE as lauchpad for their professional careers are the ones lighting up Europe. What a paradox.
So Who the hekk are we deceiving…? Who but ourselves..?
Our best players are in Europe, let the best represent us always…!!! If you are not amongst the best, training with the national team will not make you one.
Thumbs up to you once again @omoesan for that great piece.
Thank you so much The great Dr Drey.
You’re highly appreciated.
Great write up Omoesan. Thanks.
Thank you so much Deos.
@OmoEsan… Your comment “there is very little or no talents in NPFL” is emphaticically cheap. You flat monotone of arguments shows one only speaking from watching football on screens and you never yourself participated in the game to any appreciable level… for if you do, your arguments won’t be such a bore. What have your almighty foreign based won for Nigeria since a blend of local and foreign based lifted the 2013 Afcon? Being foreign based is a matter of fortune and not down to ability alone… Our league is where it is because funding, corporate sponsorship, players welfare and professional management is lacking… not for want of talents!
“…Being foreign based is a matter of fortune and not down to ability alone…”
Now this actually is the EMPHATICALLY CHEAP statement.
Its almost like saying being a good footballer is a matter of fortune and not down to ability alone. Mr man, mediocre dont make it abroad. Take it or leave it, there’s a serious dearth of talents in your league. In the last 20 years only Taiye Taiwo and Ahmed Musa have made moves straight from your league to major leagues and survived. Just 2 in 20 years.
Stop deceiving yourselves there are talents in your league. The stats say otherwise. Your so-called talents cant survive the top 20 leagues in Europe….so what talent are you referring to that they have…? or are they lacking funding, corporate sponsorship, players welfare and professional management in Europe too….? The ones that manage to force themselves on the SE through their agents and money mongering coaches dont last beyond 2 years in the limelight before their careers dim into oblivion.
What talents are you talking about…?
@Jimmyball, I never expected my post to make logical sense to you and your likes, so I am not disappointed at your response.
Thank you so much for your comment anyways, you’re highly appreciated.
This piece answers everything…..thank you enh.
OmoEsan. You have said it all. Terrific piece. Apart from seeing him at Agege and Portharcourt we recently saw the PE teacher watching NPFL matches on NPFLTV. Therefore, those asking what is the PE teacher doing are just looking for talk to talk. Their arguments are baseless. What is supposed to be the job of his assistants?? Now Eguavoen the technical director have been saddled to assemble home based players for the Mexico friendly match because Yobo is doing punditry in the Euros. Lmao!!
The fact remains that our best legs are in Europe not the NPFL. Most of our best talents in mainstream Europe today such as Ndidi, Iheanacho, Simon, Kalu, Ejuke, Chukwueze and Osimhen all came from academies scattered all over Nigeria. None of them play for any NPFL teams before moving to Europe. The fact that a 42 year old Rabiu Ali is still the best player in the NPFL says it all.
Thank you so much Aphylidgreat. You’re highly appreciated.
It is not shooting down the NPFL with all its players that is what we should be doing… If the Nigerian Professional League back in the days produced players like Etim Esin, Segun Odegbami, Emmanuel Amuneke, Ajibade Babalade, Thompson Oliha, Sunday Oliseh and Finidi George, to name only a few… What we should be doing is actually interrogating the reasons why NPFL these days may be struggling to produce same calibre of quality players as the years goneby. Football is the same all over the world… We just need to put in a good scouting system that can help us pick the real talents from average ones… I have gone round Nigeria
enough playing football to know talents abound
everywhere in that enclave.
The Nigerian league back in the days produces at least one continental finalist EVERY YEAR between 1986 to 1998…the Nigerian league of today produces teams that crash out in the 1st and 2nd round of continental competitions….we have only produced 2 continental finalists since 2004.
The Nigerian league back in the days produced players that will play for Sharks vs Udoji United this weekend and start for Ajax vs Go Ahead Eagles next weekend. The Nigerian league back in the days produced players that will be in Julius Berger FC camp this week and next week they are in Standard Liege. The Nigerian league back in the days produced players that will be playing in the challenge cup this month and next month they are playing in the Belgian cup.
The Nigerian league of today cant produce players that will pass trials in Sudan….The Nigerian league of today cant produce players that will walk into the 1st team and be star players of Mamelodi Sundowns, Orlando Pirates, Esperance, Zamalek or Alhaly.
You are only as talented as the level at which you are playing, even amongst the worst there is always a best, but that doesn’t make the best as good as the best of the best. The current structures of domestic football in Nigeria is still stuck in the past. We are still operating at the level (if not worse) and using the same methods we were operating in the 80s – 30,40 years later…that is why some people who are still stuck in the past will be crying that we should return to 4-4-2 because that was what we used in 1994, forgetting football has evolved massively beyond what it used to be even 20 years ago.
Aristotle proposed that every child is born with a tabula rasas, a clean slate, without built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge he acquires as he grows comes from experience, perception or teaching. Heddonists say a child is is born already in possession of certain knowledge and needs help to be able to mine that and bring it to the fore. Which ever school of thought we choose to agree with, the summary of it all is that Systems, People, Pedagogies and Methods contribute in bringing talent to the fore. That is what we currently lack in our domestic football today.
From management/administration to facilities down to even coaching, we are severely outdated. Old brooms do not sweep clean. You cant use methods of 1980s to get results of 2021. That is why Ifeanyi Ifeanyi will tell you playing in Uzbekistan league is miles better than in the NPFL and that of all the local coaches he has played under, only coach Salisu Yusuf in the national team, has ever given him the kind of training he receives from his coaches in Uzbekistan.
No matter what..there will still be good football fans around. @ Omoesan, thank you very much but don’t be too disappointed when you start getting some dirty/irrelevant responses from some forumites here. We are use to them…Omo9ja Squad.
Many thanks to you @Sean. You’re highly appreciated.
Eguavon to lead our home eagles while our beloved assistant coach is on pundit errand. NFF BUSTED.. LMAO.
It is not only home based players that use the SE as launch pad to greater heights.Others use the NFF platform to gain world prominence.
Oga Pinnick used his position as NFF president to become CAF vice president and now an executive member of FIFA.Only him with three important positions in world football.Why won’t he be distracted from managing our local football very well?
Virtually all the structures that will ensure a steady conveyor belt of players are dead with no one interested in doing the dirty job of putting it together.Our various youth teams failed to qualify for major competitions failing woefully against teams from CIV,Senegal and north African teams.In those hallowed period that Omosesan mentioned, when our youth teams are playing, you can see clearly the players that will make the step up to the SE.Who can still remember three names from team that Manu Garba took to the U17 tournament in Brazil or the U20 team that Paul Aibogun took to Poland, all about two years ago.
Manu Garba and Amunike started well in building foundations for super Eagles, the results is what we have today in the team.But soon, corruption and players imposition soon caught up with them and the result is the lacklustre age grade teams that have been produced since them.You ask yourself, after this generation what?.
Even the Ejaria that we are all chasing today.The boy and his dad went through hell when he came for the under 17 camp.His feeding, transportation, medicals kits and all sundry expense was paid by his dad.At the end of the day he was thrown out in favor of the less talented but annointed ones.He picked himself up, went back to England, Won the Under 20 world cup with England, got signed by Liverpool,now with Reading,Meantime, 95% of the annointed players have either fizzled out or retired with their sun setting at dawn!
I watched a documentary on Belgium football and what they are doing to ensure their continuous dominance in world football and I think we are jokers in this country.
They have built a football center(home to all their national teams) with top of the range facilities.They have already identified the second, third and fourth generation of players that will succeed the current squad and they are putting them through a well thought out transition program that will see them eventually play for the Red devils.Roberto Martinez visit them in their clubs and all aspects of their life is monitored and nurtured very closely.France have a similar program and are you surprised with their progress.
And that is why we must water down our expectations of the SE.We have fallen short faced with the real giants of African football, Cameroun, CIV, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco.We beat Benin, Lesotho and suddenly, the SE are invincible!
Rohr mentioned that to win the world cup, you must have players in the big teams doing their stuff weekly.We almost had him for dinner.But the man spoke the truth.
In some, there are talents in Nigeria, what we lack are the structures that will identify, groom and nurture those talents to stardom like we used to have.
Do we have any such structures in the horizon? I am afraid no. Oga Pinnick appears too distracted with bigger fish at the world level than bother about local stuff
@toni… Thank you. Your views are very balanced. The talents are always there, it’s our structures that have failed especially with our set of very greedy administrators… Again… It is not by winning a cup every year on the continent in club football that underlines how good our league is… See the recent cameroonian goalkeeper who was in goal against us… I heard he plays in Congo, now if he was a Nigerian, playing in Congo alone is enough to write him off and discard him as not good… but see how solid he performed against us. NO Nigeria club, even in the glory days of Rangers of Enugu, with the likes of Okala, Okey Isima, Christian Chukwu, to the famous Abiola Babes, Concord of Abeokuta, IIC Shooting stars, El Kanemi Warriors and even BCC Lions were able to win African Club Champions Cup till Enyimba of Aba won it back to back in 2003 and 2004. How did they do it? Orji Uzor Kalu poured Money backed by good professional management into the club… It’s money and good structures, topmost which is good player welfare that drives a proper league as professional. We can continue to insult our League and players from afar but we have not put our money where our mouth is… North Africa and Some Central African countries not to mention South Africa are continuously doing what we are not doing… When your league is Nursery where once a player plays two good matches and is beginning to get talked about, then he leaves(infact… escapes as most do) mid-season with the help of an agent to do trials in Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and Eastern Europe, tell me when are you ever going to have a league with quality players? Every good one eventually leaves… even though most go and enter into bad and slavish contracts that harm than do their career good… If our league as well funded and players treated very well… the league then will have so many quality players remaining back for longer periods, especially if they also get noticed and will enjoy callups to the national team from time to time… Most of those who find themselves playing abroad got snapped up by European agents through intermediaries while still playing Amateur, and Academicals… We know how FC Ebedei has helped towards that, even Abuja football Collealge. With experiences that European clubs have had with African players mostly regarding age falsification, it’s more easy these days to get a player moving from football Academies and Amateur clubs to Europe where they start from their youth teams and are made to learn the basics of football again from zero… 95% of those abroad and playing for Super Eagles now never played in our league… so good fortune is a part of it also. Those ones were lucky… but it’s not possible for everyone to start like that… Some will have to play from our home league and find their paths…
“…It is not by winning a cup every year on the continent in club football that underlines how good our league is…”
What heresy…!!!
Hehehehehe…so it is by being knocked out in preliminary stages by 2nd division clubs from Sierra Leone that underlines how good your league is…?? LMAO. It is by fasting and praying for weeks before 1 out of 4 clubs make it to the group stages of CAF competitions that proves how strong your league is..?…LMAO. Wait till CAF cuts the quota of your representatives from 4 to 1, that is when your eyes will open and realize that performance in international competitions is the major (if not the only) metric for ranking of leagues.
The strength of a league (or a national team) and its performance on the international stage are not mutually exclusive young man. They are commutative as well as associative. There is a reason why the top 5s are referred to as the TOP 5…and you will put your money on a team from the top 5 winning the UCL than a team from outside the top 5. Its not by accident.
Winning a cup every year (or putting in a solid medal zone performance) on the continent in club football underlines how good every league is…..Even people who have never kicked an orange before knows that.
Any Nigerian goalkeeper that can move from the NPFL to become no 1 at TP Mazembe or AS vita Club in Congo, will get called up to the SE anyday anytime. It was people like you who claimed a Kaizer Cheifs No 1 isn’t good enough for the SE. Today Kaizer Chiefs will be playing in the semifinals of the CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, whereas none of your own clubs made it to the group stages….and you say “…It is not by winning a cup every year on the continent in club football that underlines how good our league is…”??? LMAO
Ive told you to always record your posts and listen to it 7 times before clicking the post comment button…LMAO. “…It is not by winning a cup every year on the continent in club football that underlines how good our league is…” Wooowwwwww….!!!! Seriously……WOW.
Ok… Since you want to talk about winning cups. Give us list and year of Nigeria clubs that won Continental title from your preferred 1986 – 2004 date! Did Nigeria clubs just started playing on the continent in 1986? I think you go back to 1960 and not select a period you like just to position appeal with your arguments… In the 1970s Nigerian players were also known in Africa to be of quality… go back then and from that timeline till 2004 feat of Enyimba and buttress your arguments… In the 1960s to 1980s when our footballers could match up against those of any other African countries… tell us how many African Continental Club titles we won… Infact we were only able to win 1980 nations cup on home soil. Ghana before 1980 have won 3 African nations cup titles, while Nigeria had
none then… was that as a result of their clubs being the best on the Continent with consistent titles? I still stand by my comment…
Hahahaha…your frustrations and gaffes are beginning to get the better of you….LMAO. Go back to the beginning of this thread and refresh your mind on what we are discussing Mr and stop shadow boxing and changing from lane to lane….LMAO.
The crux of this matter is the home-based vs foreign based thing and people like you are quick to remind us about how westerhof selected home-based in our national team in the 1990s. And we are quick to educate folks like you that the fact remains that we had QUALITY that could rival the foreign-based back then in the lead up to the 90s….LMAO….our teams where dominating continental competitions within that period. Learn to to comprehend before jumping into a discussion. Westerhof wasn’t coach in 1960 0r 1970, neither did we have foreign based players in the 60s or the 70s. It wouldnt have made sense to use the 60s and 70s to judge the 90s…..im not that stupid man. If we are talking about the 90s, then lets talk about the period that led up to the 90s. And the fat remains WE WERE DOMINANT ON THE CONTINENT and had QUALITY. If we didnt have quality we wouldnt be getting to the final of continental competitions back to back for almost 10 years. That showed the strength of our league then. Contrast it to 2021 when when 4 teams will set out amd just 1 makes it to the group stages 2 or 3 times in 10 years…can you still call that a strong league..? Is the performance of the teams not an indication of a fault line in your league..?
But even if you want to drag it that far, let me remind you that we were so poor on the continent in club competitions the 60s that we only were able to debut at AFCON in 1976 after our clubs started pulling their weight on the continent. We won our first afcon in 1980 after the likes of IICC and Rangers has performed brilliantly in the years leading to 1980. Enugu ranges got to CAF champions cup finals 1975, IICC won African Cup winners cup in 1976, Enugu rangers won in 1977, Bendel Insurance lost narrowly in the semifinals to eventual winners Cannon Yaoundé in 1979…..boom we won our 1st AFCON a year later….QUALITY…..QUALITY…QUALITY. 5 years in a row we were up there on the continent. The performances of our clubs on the continent showed the strength of our league where all our national team players came from within that period. That we ended up winning 1980 AFCON wasnt an accident, we had the QUALITY to conquer the continent…more so at home…and we did. We saw it coming.
Learn to comment with your head rather than with your heart Mr….LMAO. Whoever told you the performance of your clubs in international competitions does not underline how good your league is has told you a big fat lie….LMAO. Dont come and rub that lie on us here. We are way to learned and enlightened to know better…LMAO
@Dr.Drey… So Junior Ajayi that went straight from 3SC to the first team of CS Sfaxien and Al Ahly of Egypt is not Nigerian? That shows that our league still has good quality ball players… even at that, have we ever thought Junior Ajayi, despite recommendation from a figure like Emmanuel Amuneke good enough to play Super Eagles even though we have those far less in talent being called up every now and then? Even against Mexico where are they are thinking of using home-based and a few Europe pros, I am very certain no one will invite Junior Ajayi, it was clear they were never going to invite Kelechi Nwakali until that guy turned up at NFF secretariat recently to inform of his availability for the Mexico game… I am certain that Nwakali and Junior Ajayi are two players that some top officials have vowed to deliberately keep out of the Super Eagles… nothing goes on without a reason in Nigeria!
Hahahaha…I knew you will mention your Junior Ajayi…LMAO.
Thank you very much for reminding us that 1 player out of close to 3000 (I stand to be corrected on this figure) players that played in your league in the last 10 years eventually made it to Alhaly via CS Sfaxien…..LMAO. And there are “many talents” in the so-called league….LMAO.
0.033% success rate in 10 years….LMAO. Many talents indeed.
Pls remind us again who Junior Ajayi is better than in the current SE attack….Onuachu, Dessers and Iheanacho put together right…..LMAO. No wonder he is just a waka pass player at Alahly. The same Amuneke who is recommending Ajayi now was in the SE technical crew of the SE when Junior was at the peak of his powers yet never invited him to the SE….LMAO. Hypocrisy at its peak. Maybe we should start inviting as many as 25 forwards to the super eagles now because “they are good enough to play in the SE” or because Amuneke or an ex-international has put in a good word for them….LMAO
You have come with this your argument who so and so is better than again… Since you defeated Lesotho and Benin Republic, which serious team in the continent since 2019 Afcon has your Super Eagles of Galaxy of Star defeated? Last time Cameroon came calling your FIFA ranking went south two spots… hahahahahaha. Your galaxy of stars with Gernot Beckanbauer Rohr can only pump lizard muscles against African minnows… Don’t worry,let him continue without going for that advised refresher course he has refused to attend… Cape Verde and top African teams are at the junction of World Cup qualifiers waiting for us… Algeria, Cameroon and soon Mexico has demystify Super Eagles… Press them high and close their flanks… they become rudderless with the rigid methods of our “3weeks presence in Nigeria only during a game” foreign coach. We Sidon the look…
south africa with their well organised league did not qualify for afcon and hardly do well even anytime they qualified.Take it or leave it,believe it or not,our NPFL has quality raw talents that just need good structure.Let APC government now appoint Senator orji uzor kalu as a sport minister,you will see the highest and the best home based players winning trophies for this country.@DR drey and others,i bet you all that if anyone of you is given an appointment with good accomodation and cars to monitor our local league and bring out the best players,none of you will fail the task.
Before you all condemned our league,how many times have you gone to watch matches at onikan stadium or agege stadium?Yes our NFF has their own majority faults but what about YOU !!!.
(A) Some of the players in our league comes from different football academies injected into different league clubs
(b) Majority of these academies are owned and sponsored by ex-internationals.Thats why most of them wants to coach the U17 so that they can sell their players out.
Am a portharcourt based football fan and i dont joke with watching NPFL.i Travelled alot to watch Heartland fc of owerri matches and rivers united,and i can tell you all that talents abound.If you doubt me i will personally take you to Aba and show you some areas in aba where the boys play football(osisioma.school road and ngwa road).
Please and please never you condemned NPFL.What is needed now is good structure and Nigeria football will rise again.Thank you
Oga we watch our league from our different bases. We watch our clubs play on the continent looking like amateurs against their mates from other countries with solid leagues. We know excellence when we see excellence. You are not the one to tell us what we already know. Your league has talents, your league has talents, only 1 players from the same league has succeeded in decent leagues outside the country in 10 years….0.033% success rate. Who are you deceiving.
When mediocres play against mediocres, 1 mediocre will definitely stand out. That does not make him quality. Your league has talents, your league has talents, yet qualifying for group stages of caf competitions is like climbing Mt everest for them. Your league has talents, your league has talents, only Taoye Taiwo and Ahmed Musa has moved from the league to main stream Europe and succeeded in close to 20 years….abeg Make we hear word biko.
The best Nigerian players are not in the domestic league…the best 35 Nigerian players are Europe based. QED. Let the best represent us always…SIMPLE and SHORT.
How that is so hard for Nigerians to abide by beats imagination
The problem is no good player can last upto 2-season in 9ja league without going to Europe..
Our best leg dey Europe!
That’s All!
All our foreign professional players are they worls class players? If you are these then have it in mind that all our players are all average footballers.Always support your league.
So it is your home-based that is world class…? LMAO. It is your homebased that cannot pass trials in Sudan or have decent careers abroad that is above average….LMAO. I will support my league Mr…..but that doesnt mean I should deceive myself that they deserve to be reserved slots in the national team ahead of better players simply because they are homebased. If 35 of the best Nigerian players are all abroad ALL 35 should represent us. Simple.
How long do we want to deceive ourselves for in this Nigeria?
Firstly, Nigeria is not our problem as a country, our oppressors which means our leaders/rulers are the core fundamental problems that Nigeria have as a nation.
For example, having Mr. Amaju Pinnick, the former politician as the president of the Nigerian football Federation is a big mistake that ever happened to our sports in Nigeria.
We have to do things accordingly. We have to get our former ex players involved.
Ivory coast, Didier Drogba made an attempt to become a president of the Ivory coast Football Federation in his home country but it didn’t work out which I believe one day, he will get it right.
We should start having our ex players in charge of our sports hopefully, they will get things right.
Our football may continue shaking due to the influence of the Nigerian politician/ leaders/rulers.
Everything about our system is very poor, corrupt and not transparent to the extent that, we are far behind in Africa and globally.
Hmmm. Furthermore. The gap between the western world and Nigeria is not that wide if we put our hearts together and stay away from selfish attitudes.
Let me give you my people an example from just concluded match between the Nigerian women team and the USA.
Chai. I hope I’m communicating?
USA team is the world champions and they believed before the match against the Nigerian team, they would be scoring for fun but then, when the actions begins, they were shocked.
Don’t forget that the Nigerian team didn’t play together over a year and the USA were playing with almost a new Nigerian team because most of our regular players were not available for that invitational games still, the new manager of the Super Falcons did well in that games and most especially against the USA.
My point here is, our leaders should do the right thing at the right time by putting the right people in charge of everything we do in this country.
Mr. Waldrum is bringing new ideas and changing the mind set of our players from we are not good enough to compete with the best to yes, they are human beings like you so, you can do much better against the best teams if you put God first and you believe in your ability that you can hold your own against the top teams then, you can do anything in life and be successful.
That is definitely what happened against the USA match.
We all saw what the gaffer was trying to implements in the Super Falcons team and all the NFF have to do is to support and give him a space to work with the team.
As I said before, we have the foundation everywhere in our sport.
Whoever that comes in as a coach shouldn’t have a problem of selecting the best players for the national teams to represent Nigeria.
Now, why Super Eagles can’t be rely on under the coach Rohr?
The question is very simple. The gaffer doesn’t have the ability to read and use the right tactics that matches his opponents.
For me, Nigeria have wasted five years with Oga Rohr.
Let’s look at the way coach Waldrum used his immature team to make name for himself and Nigeria by calling attentions of both local and foreign based players that his very best is yet to come?
In less than a year, we can tell ourselves that something great is coming from the Super Eagles team which we are not seeing in the Super Eagles because all they do is just putting the ball on the pitch without game plans and we lucky that we have the players that winning matches for Super Eagles so far under Oga Rohr.
Above all, Oga Rohr can not do more than his capacity. He would have gone after the world cup in Russia if NFF were honest with themselves but we know how the system works, you can’t be doing the same thing and expecting different result kę.
What goes around comes around ba.
I am very impressed with the new coach of the Super Falcons by given the new players game time to show their abilities against the top teams in the world and Nigerian female team wasn’t disgraced. Hmmm. Bravo.
I read it somewhere that Mr. Eguavoen is taking over our home based team against Mexico match? If that news is true then, what is the purpose of using our home based for this friendly in July against Mexico?
NFF are playing politics game in our sports.
Instead of using our home based players for this friendly, why can’t NFF and Oga Rohr rob minds together by calling most of the the irregular players and mix them with few regular ones to face the Mexican team?
Or he, Oga Rohr should follow the Falcons coach way by inviting Dessers and co to play the friendly match?
Some of us still counting on Oga Rohr and NFF president?
Both of Oga Rohr and NFF are like 1999 Nigerian constitution.
NFF is using Oga Rohr contract to scammed Nigerians while Nigerian 1999 is a fraud. If you know you know.
Let’s give the right people a chance to lead us then, we will see the difference in whatever we do in Nigeria or about Nigeria in less than ten years.
Oga Rohr is not the coach that can build us the team you and I can be proud of and we should let go of Oga Rohr and Oga Pinnck.
No disrespect to Oga Pinnck and Oga Rohr but both parties have to leave first if we have to enjoy good football from our Super Eagles boys.
In one word, we still have talented, elegant, experienced, exceptional and reliable players at home in Nigeria and abroad that can represent Nigeria but NFF and Mr. Gernot Rohr are letting Super Eagles down.
NFF wasn’t satisfied with the former coach of the Super Falcons, Mr. Thomas Dennerby and they got him fired upon winning the women Afcon trophy in less than a year while Oga Rohr still in charge of the shaking Super Eagles tea over the past five years?
Something is fishy among the two paparties we are watching you Mr. Amaju Pinnick and Mr. Gernot Rohr.
We can’t continue with Oga Rohr and Mr. Amaju Pinnick because we deserved better than this shekena. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!