Former Nigerian international, Edema Fuludu believes interim coach of the Super Eagles, Finidi George has what it takes to manage the senior national team to success.
He made this known on the backdrop of Nigeria’s 2-1 win over Ghana in an international friendly encounter played on Friday.
In a cgat with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Fuludu advised the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to offer Finidi the job of the Super Eagles.
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“Finidi is calm, composed, and has coaching qualifications to handle the team perfectly.
“As far as I am concerned, he is not someone that can be easily influenced.
“He is capable of handling the players, having understudied the former foreign coach, Jose Peseiro,” he said.
The ex-international said he was very happy over the victory over the Ghanaian team by the Super Eagles.
He added that such a victory would also improve the eagle’s team’s spirit and raise the world’s ranking.
“I have been saying that employing an indigenous coach for Super Eagles will bring the best out of our national players because he will understand the team better than the foreigners,” he said.
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Well in my honest opinion yes,if u carefully check d stages he passed Tru before getting to this level u will know that God is actually saying something,he is just like good luck Jonathan,he is destined for greater things if n only if he remains humble, discipline n doest compromise hes standard I see him building a revolutionary team in d world of football
Well said, Fuludu, yourself an iconic footballer during our golden era.
To the discourse, Finidi is already the permanent coach of the Super Eagles, nothing is changing that as what we are working on right now is to have Ahmed Musa as Super Eagles asst. Coach going forward.
All said and done can he be compelled to drop the eyimba fc coaching role to allow him focus on the national team assignment I also believe he can do the job well
Pt 1
Is Finidi The Right Man For The Hot Seat?
Erstwhile Head of NFF Amaju Pinnick propounded and perpetuated the notion that the Super Eagles and Falcons coaching boots are way to wide for any indigenous coach to occupy.
It would also seem that his successor Alhaji Gusau has also latched on to this philosophy. Hence, despite the commendable work and laudable outputs of Super Falcons Stand-in Coach Justin Madugu, Alhaji Gusau still worked assiduously behind the scenes to return expatriate American Randy Waldrum into the role when push came to shove. For those clamouring for Finidi, please bear this little detail in mind
Pt 2
Indeed, the Super Eagles coaching job is a tempestuous and stormy role. Only an individual with a solid umbrella of an array of stakeholder management skills can avoid being capsized in the sea of intolerable forces that can send any mere mortal to a mental asylum.
From powerful players to remorseless journalists/bloggers, from corrupt football officials to selfish football agents, from inadequate infrastructure to frustrating travel logistics, from being owed very many wages for many months, to being expected to deliver by the same people owing you the wages, from trying to motivate players being owed wages to trying to motivate yourself the coach after being abused savagely on social media following 2 draws in World Cup qualifiers and a formation armchair critics do not buy into: it is a wonder anyone in their right mind will put forward their beloved cat to coach the Super Eagles.
So, to the elephant in the room, or rather the former Eagles in the dressing room: Finidi George. Is he the right man for the role?
Pt 3
Who am I to do that question justice? Feelers from the NFF suggest that the decision makers are of the view that – all factors considered – the Super Eagles coaching role, or better still, poisoned portfolio, is way too heavy, way too perilous, for any indigenous coach to carry at this point in time.
And that I tend to agree.
Finidi played a 5-2-1-2 formation that contributed to Nigeria’s win against Ghana yesterday. That is enough for some people to hand the role to Finidi on a silver platter. Indeed, some have hailed it as being better than Peseiro’s 3-4-3 (I laugh in NFF language) . For Peseiro, he sacrificed 1 midfielder to have wings in front with two wingers. This gave Nigeria width (admittedly overloading Iwobi and Onyeka in the middle). However, with Finidi, the lack of natural width upfront meant the wingbacks had to push higher for longer thereby overstretching the 3 centre backs – something Ghana almost punished in the second half. Also, lack of natural wingers upfront meant Nigeria was narrow in attack, something that could also be further curtailed by a technical opposition.
The 352 formation will stretch the wing backs. Recall, it was the same formation that Rhor used at the WC, that makes Victor Moses to be ball watching which cause us to lose to Argentina and eventually knocked us out of the tournament. After running tirelessly for almost 90 mins, moses was tired to pick the runs of the Argentine defender that scores the dying minutes goal.
The best formation to navigate any good and organized team remains 433
Pt 4
In football, for everything you hold on to in one formation, you sacrifice something else which shrewd opponents can capitalise on.
It’s by far too early to make a case for Finidi on the back of 1 win in my humble opinion. It was like making a case for Eguavoen on the back of 3 fabulous group stage Afcon victory – we all saw how that worked out.
I am not paying for the salary of the coach so from that angle it makes no difference to me who is employed full time.
But, when the heat became too hot in the kitchen, Oliseh fled this same role. That heat is still there and I can argue that it is even hotter and more inhospitable than Oliseh’s time as Super Eagles coach.
Interesting end to end stuff and it is really difficult to put a stick to the ground at either spectrum of the for or against arguments.
However, it must be noted that with a foreign coach, it is all about businesses .The long term success of the team is not too important to them.Just do your best with the very good Nigerian players, improve your CV, grab your loot and run back to the safety of your country and wait for another mugu African country.
That was what peserio did.If he were that good he would have been employed by now, First it was Algeria wanting to give him a job,then Cameroon and now kaizer chiefs!
The tide is changing in Africa towards indigenous coaches and Senegal gave us a template.Cisse have been coach now for about 6 years but behind the scene, he has about 5 French men from the various clubs he played for in France as his backroom staff.same with Morocco, Now CIV and Ghana.Evem Finding had one foreign assistant from Ajax for the two matches against Ghana and Mali.
Now that is the way to go in my view, Give Finidi the security of a long term contract, empower him like Walid, Cisse, Fae and Addo to make big calls , Let him hire his backroom staff local or foreign and let us see how it goes.
Interesting this local and foreign combo was started by Samson Siasia long ago.All siasia successes was done to one dutch guy called Simon kalika who worked behind the scene.
If the above sxenerio does not play out then we go for a world class coach in the real sense of the word, not some white dudes wanting to use us to enrich his CV. But the NFF will go for another average foreign coach because they come cheap, are easily manipulated and of course, the brown evelope syndrome
Wowww….so success according to you would be having a figureheàd black local guy with the titleof “Head Coach” while the main job will still be done backstage by the same whites you chose to call all sorts of names….LMAOoo
Foreign coaches don’t care about long term successes, so i supposed it the incompetent locals you are campaigning for who struggle to qualify for even Ordinary AFCON that we should depend on for long term success…?? The same local lads who still go and get the most competent whitemen to back them up and do the main job for them backstage….?
If this isn’t self deceit, I wonder what else is…..LMAOoo
By the way, we have had more local coaches in the SE than whitemen….please why/how is it that mostly the whitemen’s CVs get enriched after their time as SE coaches …LMAOoo.
Final Part
Yet, despite abuse from some players (okobi), media (useless fraud), fans (secondary school coach etc) , and even NFF’s own media officer (blabber mouth, worst coach in Nigeria’s history), Randy Waldrum delivered the goods against all odds.
Despite NFF Officials going on Twitter saying they would have sacked Jose Peseiro if they had the money; despite most fans calling for his head before the Afcon, despite being owed wages; despite his players being owed bonuses ; despite feud with powerful players like Iheanacho and Ekong, Peseiro took us much closer to the Afcon promise land than any other coach in the last 10 years.
And these are only the hardships these two coaches faced that we know of.
The NFF Administrators are no fools. They are well aware that heavy and painful lies the head that wears the Super Eagles Coaching Crown.
So, I think they will only hand the job to a head that is resilient enough to absorb the bashings that comes from all corners to him who wears that unfortunate crown. Unfortunate: despite Afcon silver, many fans still said “good riddance to bad rubbish” after Peseiro left the role.
In the case of the Super Falcons, the NFF decided not to anoint Justin Madugu.
Only time will tell whether they will anoint Finidi
This is a beautiful analysis from you, Deo. Much of what you have written echoes my thoughts on who should be appointed as the next SE gaffer. The truth remains that no indigenous coach has the temerity to coach the SE and this is a postulation that is backed with shreds of evidence. Finidi cannot do the job; however, he is a potential gaffer if he works on his experience. Defeating Ghana is not a benchmark. Here’s why: Ghana is badly out of form and they have just begun their rebuilding process. In a matter of months, they will become formidable. Ghana has an array of stars. The match itself is a 50/50 as we took possession in the first half and they took it in the second half despite that they were one man down.
It may be too early to call the shots but even Finidi knows he does not have the man-management skills to handle the current crop of SE players. The NFF knows this and this is why they won’t likely appoint him. From what we can see, there is a bias against appointing the very best of coaches. Some people desperately want this current SE to fail so that they can have bragging rights. Sadly, our best player in recent times, Osi, may not even be at the World Cup, if these shenanigans continue. It is only in Nigeria that someone who could not take the team to the World Cup keeps his job. I hope the FG steps in. We need to hire better coaches and the truth is that there is the money to pay!
@deo, well-said brother.
I believe one day Pesseiro and Waldrum will reveal all they endured as coaches of the national team.
The main reason why these two gave us the best performance of the decade in their respective team is not far fetched.
Both deployed the right players that match the suitable approach after taking time to iterate and understand the Nigerian mentality.
Both coaches overcome pressures from influential individuals including players, nff, ex-players, and the nff to identify the main starter for their team.
Supported with performance. Pesseiro has provided the Super Eagles the fulcrum of the team (Nwabali, Aina, Semi, Ekong, Frank, Lookman, Osimhen).
A smart new coach would want to use these warriors as foundation and incorporate the missing parts (Nfidi, Awo, and Boni). Discover a suitable and focussed playmaker to put Iwobi where he belongs.
Both coaches lost many friendlies but smacked their critics with remarkable performances where they matter most.
Thanks Messrs King and Larry for your feedback.
I think Findi can administrate Super Eagles with his calmness and good tactics which he played versus Ghana , but he needs to put tow or three tactics with the current of any match, just when Ghana pressed SE on second half , he must change tactic to dislocate this blockade by Black Stars , he should have played with 3-5-2 with anti pressing on BS, so he must have three plans to play with plan a,b,c …
Here we go again, someone making a case to rubbish the Local coaches. What and what did the foreigners endured that our local coaches didn’t or can’t endure. Spare us all this stories about Paseiro did this or that, why didn’t he apply the same tactics when he was coach of Venezuela or Saudi Arabia. Even Rorh, what happened to the tactics that gave allowed him to win games with matches to spare? Coach who has yet to win one game with Benin republic. Was that how he started with the Eagles. One would have expected Brazil to come for him since he sabi win game with matches to spare, which country will not ike that. Give the same treatment you give to the white coaches to the local ones, and lets see what will transpire.
Kenneth,
Therein lies the problem. Will you give a local coach the same sort of treatment you gave Rohr and other expatriate coach?
Perhaps you will actually. After all we all saw how Ladan Bosso is being chased out of town despite Under 20 Afcon Bronze,Wafu U-20 Zone B Gold, World Cup qualification and World Cup quarter finals X2.
Be it local or foreign candidate, the Super Eagles coach must be someone of strong character, unshakable willpower, who has or can develop connections in higher places beyond the NFF (Coach Keshi) and who can command respect of powerful players and even discard some big names of needs be.
For me, I don’t see any living indigenous coach with such balls of steel at the moment. But, what do I know?
I don’t know who Finidi knows or how connected he is; I don’t know how well he can tame these same Iheanachos singing his praises now; the same Iheanacho Gernot Rohr dropped from the 2019 Afcon squad for “unseriousness”. I don’t know how well he can cultivate a healthy relationship with the Press and powerful football agents without compromising his own integrity.
Kenneth, we all wish the Super Eagles well and will support whomever the NFF employs, local or foreign.
Odegbami has said it all, that all the federation administrators are all greedy and selfish. I hope you watched the Ladan Bosso interview about the NFF not having the funds for camping. My brother lets give this guys a chance and see.
Expecting Rohr to produce from Benin Republic the same results he had with Nigeria makes as much sense as expecting Guardiola to win the Champions League with Burnley.
Why can’t Guardiola use tiki taka or any other of his great tactics to win UCL with Burnley? Guardiola must be a clueless PE teacher!
Even though Rohr has not yet won a game yet with Benin Republic, he has drawn games against former and current Afcon champions Senegal and Ivory Coast. That means he’s moving in the right direction. It’s only a matter of time.
We hope he doesn’t get it right when we meet later in the world cup qualifiers. Let him get it right later on against other opponents. For all we know, that first win he’s waiting for may come against us. I hope not. And after the shoddy treatment NFF gave him, Rohr would be highly motivated to wreck havoc against us .
I believe in giving credit where it is due. Rohr’s achievements speak for him. He deserves respect.
You made a lot of sense. I watched the Benin-CIV friendly and must say Benin has greatly improved. In fact, CIV was playing catch-up, coming from behind twice to draw the game 2 – 2. Unlike Paseiro, who likes to play smash, grab, and defend for 1 hour, Benin was constantly on the offensive. It made the Afcon loss pain me so much. We just gifted that trophy to a rookie coach cos Paseiro chose defensive and made Iwobi (and out-and-out offensive player) look incompetent. He made Osimhen doubt his ability, isolating him upfront.
These were some of the reasons his silver medal wouldn’t blindside me. Fumbling and wobbling to the final with his ‘safe’ ultra-defensive tactics only to lose to a team that barely made it to the R16, got disgraced 4 – 0 by EG, and was just made to look ordinary by Benin. It was one big missed opportunity by a coach that left us with a mountain to climb in the WCQ, cashed out, and left us to our fate.
The resumption of the WCQ in June/July is going to be interesting. All the teams are formidable, and SA may not even be the bogey team. Benin, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda are going to have much to say on who picks the group’s ticket. Even Lesotho has done some damage to us already. Thanks Paseiro. A foreign coach doesn’t care. It’s all business to him. He’s gone now with all his loot areas all paid off by the FG. He can afford to go on holiday with his family to Ibiza or Bora Bora for the next 6 months.
Benin has greatly improved….LMAO!
Anyway, happy for Benin if the failure to win a single game amounts to “great improvement” for The Squirrels, but thankfully the Reserved-for-Africans Gernot Rohr’s Nigerian chapter is closed forever!!
Oh….so a team that was struggling to score goals and losing with reckless abandon now score in almost every game and is now difficult to defeat (even by both the current and immediate past AFCON champions) is not improving…..LMAOoo. They’ve only lost by the odds goal to south Africa away and were a 90th minute save from Mozambique’s GK away from qualifying for afcon right there in Maputo ahead of Mozambique, after coming back from the dead in the middle of the qualifiers.
Don’t worry, wait till when they derail Nigerian’s world cup plans ehn….LMAOoo….That is when the realities of what improvement means will dawn on you.
Let hatred still continue to play with your sense of judgement for now….LMAOoo
You can add Turks and Caicos to that list, hahaha.
Peseiro really cashed out, big time. I no blame am. Na NFF ONIGBESE I go blame.
Personally, I’m not a fan of defensive aka bus parking tactics. But I do believe that given where we were during the Afcon, we needed that just to give ourselves a chance of remaining in the competition.
So Peseiro was right to give priority to defense, BUT HE OVERDID IT.
What made the situation worse for us was the wastefulness of our strikers and other players. The chances we did manage to create were not utilized.
However, if we had gone along with our usual NAIVE all out attacking approach, throwing the kitchen sink at opponents and leaving our back exposed, the outcome for us would have been much worse. We would likely have been bundled out at the group stage. Opponents would just sit back, soak up the pressure and hit us on the counter. That’s a strategy that has traditionally been golden against Nigeria. Many teams have had much success using it against us. A certain Ghana comes to mind.
Hopefully, Finidi can help us hit the sweet spot between defensive and offensive football.
Please deo, go straight to the point, simply put, you don’t believe in local coach and maybe you don’t like them also.
Let me tell you and others who believe in what you believe that no matter what, a foreign coach is better than our own Kai,nba kę.
If we have to go by what Paseiro did, we should stop hiring foreign coach.
Can you or anyone tell me in which area did Paseiro improve in the Super Eagles?
Our players were the ones that did the job because they wanted to win the afcon trophy by all means.
If Paseiro without good record coach Super Eagles so what is stopping our own to do the job?
This time around if Finidi, Amunike, Egbo or any of our own did not get the job, it is because NFF is curropt and they won’t get brown envelopes from our own.
You tried to hire your thoughts in your right up but it shows in the end but we can not continue with what NFF ajewomasan the debtors is offering us.
We want to do something different this time around. Some of us stop using one bad local coach to judge others. Not that all Nigerians are curropt same thing applies to our local coaches.
We are no longer interested in foreign coaches enough of that.
If NFF is that serious about what they are doing, by now they would have hired a coach by now but they want to manipulate the situation.
If Super Eagles not big for someone like Paseiro, Super Eagles can be manageable for our own.
Paseiro have destroyed our players to the extent that most of them were injured. He misused Super Eagles and where is the gaffer today if he truly merits his position?
So deo and others please let give our own a chance to take over from unconvinced foreign coaches that had coaching Super Eagles before now except Westerhof and Jo bonfere. Sorry if I did not spell their names correctly.
Can be proud of Oga Rohr who relied on Uzoho and he even suggested that Paseiro should use Uzoho in the last afcon.
Let’s support our own. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Omo9ja,
What can I say? Reading your comment is truly entertaining.
So Peseiro destroyed our players; Peseiro did not improve any areas in the Super Eagles (yet you Omo9ja and others quarrel with me over our new goalkeeping Messiah Nwabili whom Peseiro installed).
I don’t pay the Super Eagles coach so it makes no difference to me who they employ. But,if the NFF believe Finidi has the cornucopia of skills and attributes needed to coach the Super Eagles, so be it.
If you remember, I was willing to give Eguavoen a chance. Indeed I was sold on his 4-4-2 formation. I just felt he lack the tactical vision to overcome shortcomings that the formation engenders. I like Ladan Bosso – another indigenous coach – and I have no qualms if he continues coaching the Flying Eagles. So you can’t accuse me of not “liking” indigenous coaches.
But, looking at how fickle and disloyal Nigeria fans can be, I will pity Finidi when fans like you turn against him the minute results start becoming negative. When that time comes, it is this same me that will be the lone voice in the wilderness supporting Finidi and pleading for fans to give him more time to turn things around, just like I did for Bosso, Eguavoen, and players like Akpeyi and Uzoho.
Thanks deo for your sweet response. You see my man, the real fans support the coach in charge of any team when things are going
well and also ask the gaffer when the poor results start coming in.
Paseiro did not do anything unique to improve Super Eagles. So why wasting time? NFF should do the needful kę. It doesn’t have to be Amunike. We have good Nigerian coaches in Nigeria and abroad.
Let’s give our own to take us to afcon and world cup. After two years if they fail then we can go back to foreign coaches but for now, let’s give them another chance to prove their worth. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
All this blabbing about 3-5-2 will not sustain for a long time I don’t understand.Is inzaghi not using 3-5-2 in Milan is it not working, what about mourinho at Roma, what about tuchel at Chelsea sometimes, what about conte , even genot rohr who drew to civ.Normally I am not a fan of local coaches because if u look at their profile most of them don’t have qualifications.I can’t call finidi a local coach same way I can’t call Fae a local coach (because it was a wrong tag given by the media having coach before at Lyon ,ogc nice, Clermont,and became assistant coach of civ for 4 years) if you look at finidi george career as a player and a coach u will see difference and experience (playing for Ajax 9 years under van gaal, spending time in Spain with real bets and Mallorca and spending six years as coach in Spain for pec zwolle) with all these coming to dominate the npfl in 2 seasons and winning a league didn’t surprise me because he followed process unlike some ex international who sit at their houses and wait for contract.Finally if finidi does not get the job another npfl coach mattew ilechukwu should get it ,he coaches Enugu rangers,him and finidi George their quality is beyond the npfl
I have not seen any local of Nigerian coach that is worth coaching Nigeria at this point…. Who are the Local coaches Enyeama is advocating for?…Those that refuse to improve themselves?…How many of them are coaching at the moment even at the Local level?…Only Finidi George….. Do we hand the affairs of our dear Super Eagles to the likes of Eguavoen & Ladan Bosso( those two have failed so many times after so many opportunities), Amunike (who still needs to prove himself locally),Siasia who is under suspension, Sylvanus Okpala (why has he not been coaching since after assisting Keshi to win 2013 AFCON?), Amokachie, Salisu Yusuf, Sunday Oliseh (he was there but failed because of lack of man management quality). These people are obvious risk that we can not afford to take at this moment. Finidi George, maybe yes but still needs some tutelage under another foreign coach…Let Finidi start with CHAN Eagles. I still believe all of these local coaches are opportunists who have nothing to offer yet unless they prove themselves just like what Finidi is doing with Enyimba locally. They (ex players) are not helping themselves by sitting down doing nothing to advance their careers and only waiting on the sentiment of being a Nigerian coach. that is not enough….Not even at this time when we have few months to two crucial games in June with Bafana boys and Republic of Benin….