By John Egbokhan
Nigeria’s Super Eagles have dropped to the 34th spot in the July edition of the FIFA world rankings that have Confederations Cup winners, Brazil returning to the top on Wednesday, for the first time since August 2007, by jumping four places and knocking European champions Spain down to second spot.
The Nigerian side, who were on the 30th spot in last month’s edition, dropped four slots, losing ground to the likes of Ivory Coast, now ranked 18, Cameroon, who are 29th on the table and Gabon, who gained 18 places, courtesy of a perfect run in the 2010 World Cup and Nations Cup qualifying race.
Chief Oyiki Obaseki, Chairman, NFL
Nigeria’s slump could be linked to their poor form given that Eagles have scooped only four points from their last two World Cup qualifiers against Kenya and Tunisia. In fact, the decline was due to the fact that the likes of Ivory Coast and Gabon were impressive in their games, where they have managed to win all their three matches.
Elsewhere on the continent, Bafana Bafana’s gallant showing in the Confederations Cup has resulted in South Africa climbing up two places in the FIFA world rankings to 70th position, while disappointing performances by Iraq (94th, down 17) and New Zealand (100th, down 18) caused them to lose ground.
Of the other countries that took part in the Confederations Cup are finalists USA (12th, up two), and Egypt (38th, up two).
Egypt’s improved position, despite their early exit from the tournament, is due to their 1_0 victory over world champions Italy, which scored very highly in terms of ranking points.
Algeria (47th, up 19) and Tunisia (49th, up two) have climbed into the top 50 at the expense of Burkina Faso (51st, down one) and Finland (52nd, down three). Netherlands have dropped to third ahead of world champions Italy while Germany fall two places to fifth. Russia were the second_biggest movers in the top 10, rising from ninth to sixth ahead of England, Argentina and France.
Confederations Cup finalists the United States moved up two spots to 12th, while 15th_placed Denmark are back in the top 20 one position above Australia who have climbed from 29th.
The rankings are based on performances over the last four years.
I do not worry myself about FIFA ranking. Ranking doesn’t win matches and tournaments! Rather hard work, good planning, sound management, commitment, competent players/coaching crew and adequate/timely funding are all ingredients required for success by any serious country aspiring to do well in major football tournaments. Apart from politics and poor management of football in Nigeria by mediocres, the quality of our football has progressively declined due to years of false age declaration at various levels of youth competitions by players with active connivance of coaches and football authorities. As a result, there’s clear absence of succession plan and competition amongst budding players. Based on statistics of matches played so far by the Super Eagles, Shuaibu Amodu led coaching crew has done well though the peformance has been adjudged unconvincing by majority of sports loving Nigerians. It seems to me that Amodu doesn’t possess that needed drive to propel and motivate present crop of players to the next level. Siasia would have been a preferred choice to handle the senior national team due to his well known pedigree. On consistency grounds, however, it will not be wise to change the present coaching crew.
The only good team Nigeria ever had was the USA ‘94 squad who played the game of football with all mindset to reposition Nigeria and obtain victory. What we have now are self centered players who would rather die playing for their european clubs than their country. While it is a pride for players in other countries to wear their national colors in football events, the Nigerian players, after they have been groomed to play abroad now feel too big for the country – indiscipline. What we need are home groomed and home based players that would play football with all their mind as did players like Amokachi, Sunday Oliseh, Taribo West, Jay Jay Okocha, Clelestine Babayaro, Stephen Keshi, dem too many to list here. The likes of Obi Mikel should be shown the way out because they are damned too stupid. Fuck dem all.
I think Nigeria have good enough players. The problems facing the country’s football has been outlined by many writer. One, as another writer has pointed out, is that they don’t play together enough to develop into a team. The USA, knowing this, has camp its players for several weeks at a time to develop them into a cohesive unit. The coach uses these camps to identify players and test their readiness for competition. We all saw how the USA team did at the Confederations Cup. The scond problem is that we demand committment from players who have a country that don’t care about its people. The players have family who report to them about the deplorable conditions prevalent in the country. How such conditions inspire patriotism? Why would a player who players overseas be ready to die for Nigeria on the pitch giving the way the country is? I agree that Samson Siasia would have been the best coach for the Super Eagles. You need a coach with modern training in techniques, tactics and fitness. I doubt if Nigeria can boast a modern facilities that the players who come from abroad are used to. So what I’m saying is the the off-field management issues should be addressed before the Super Eagles can fly gain. If will be a miracle if we to the World Cup with the present setup.
Even a blind man can see that the technical crew of our team is defficient. The job of a coach is to scout for and identify talented players that can play to his technical inovations. He will then hone the individual talents of such players and brew a formidable blend of his vision into a team. But what do we have here? Our lack luster, false-hearted and unexposed coaches simply rely on the passion, dedication and luck of players that have already been developed by other coaches. Only miracles can give us success in this circumstance, and Nigeria has had more than a fair share of miracles. We deserve the 100th position, if you ask me. Idiots!
Super Eagles.It is now time for you to be serious.Draw game and loose game lead to drop at the end when result of FIFA ranking is out
yes, siasia should replace the present choach and combined with Amokachi to the work.
Honestly, I wonder what criteria FIFA use to arrive at these rankings. Deserved or not, I don’t think they should be taken seriously. FIFA reviews the ranking month-by-month. In the month under review (June), Nigeria defeated former world champions, France in their home in a FIFA-recognised friendly, defeated Kenya 3-nil and drew with Tunisia in world cup qualifiers, yet went down by four places. What is even more interesting is that France (the country that lost at home to us) IMPROVED in their ranking. Their only other game in June was a slim 1-nil win over Turkey in another friendly.
Based on the quality of our game Nigeria is still ranked too high . Has anybody wondered why most Afirican teams are improving their game while Nigeria is going backwards? The main problem to me is that we don’t know how to manage football. The so called leaders or managers in the NFF don’t have a clue about what they are doing. We Nigerians have big mouths for nothing. If we want to play in the world cup in south Africa Amodu obviously should be replaced, he seriously lacks the technical ability to build a strong team. Amodu’s comment that the midfield does not win matches is a very good example of his lack of vision. Any good football manager should know that the midfield plays a very vital role in the game of football. This is probably why we have such a weak midfield, because the man in charge does not believe it is important. How can we be happy because we played a goaless draw with Tunisa? Has anybody forgotten that we still have to play Kenya in their country? We all saw how they played the eagles in Nigeria. There is no urgency, or any sign of seriousness on the part of all the lame duck football managers we have in Nigeria. We’ll be VERY LUCKY TO PLAY IN THE WORLD CUP.
I don’t know if we can honestly say we (Nigeria) can lay claim to quality players. Nigeria have not invested in grooming players. We usually rely on players, that through efforts of their own have managed to make ‘reasonably’ good (not great) careers. We bring these players together for a few days preceding qualifiers and expect them to perform wonders. Apart from such an approach being insulting to our opponents, it doesn’t create a team – just a group of individuals. Having no team per say, I was actually surprised to find that we ranked higher than Ghana, Egypt, and even Columbia.
As for the 2010 world cup, I don’t think Nigeria has a prayer. If we want to improve our rankings, and give ourselves a shot at doing well in (and possibly winning) major competitions, we should stop relying almost entirely on foreign-based players and start grooming new crops of players locally – like some African countries have done. With the quality of discipline and play displayed by the South Africans in the just concluded Confederations Cup, I know this possible. In addition, we really do need someone at the helm with real technical know-how.
This is not a good position to be considering the quality of players that the country possess. For the Super Eagles to attain a respectable position on FIFA’s ranking, this is the time for Amodu to start winning matches. Draw games are just not good enough. A coach who is very comfortable with draws, is showing his technical ineptitude. Before the Tunisia match, Amodu did say that he knows what to do to win that match. What we saw during the match was that he has no better techniques other than playing for a draw. Amodu does not have enough technical knowledge of the game to fashion out a winning formular for the present Super Eagles players. You cannot give what you don’t have. The players are capable of doing better than they are presently doing, but the skills and technical knowledge needed by the players is not coming from Amodu. If we must qualify for South Africa, the NFF needs to deploy Samson Siasia to the Supper Eagles to assist Amodu. After the qualification, Siasia should take over completely.