Nwabufo Obienu doubled as vice chairman of then Nigeria Football Association and coordinator of the Eagles during the qualification for 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. He worked with coaches Amodu Shaibu, Stephen Keshi and Joe Erico and can attest to their abilities. He bared his mind yesterday in a telephone chat.
“It will be criminal to drop Amodu from the World Cup. We are still paying for the price of the nemesis that caught up with us the last time they qualified us for the World Cup and they sacked them. I worked closely with them and I know the capabilities and limitations of Amodu.
amodu
I strongly suggest that Amodu needs help. He cannot do it alone. Let them promote him technical adviser or team manager as recommended in your column last Friday and bring in Keshi to be the coach. I know how they worked the last time and I strongly agree that we don’t need a foreign coach to the job.
They can bring in Keshi after the Nations Cup since his contract with Mali will end then. Siasia, Amokachi and the rest can be named assistants and with Amodu let them prosecute the Nations Cup in Angola. After the Nations Cup, let them elevate Amodu and bring in Keshi.
They also need a strong team manager. If Keshi is in the team when we are preparing for the World Cup and he drills the players in three weeks or more, you will see the remarkable difference in the team.
Apart from their abilities, taking Keshi and Amodu to go to the World Cup will be another way to make up for injustice Nigeria meted to them that haunted us for long.
The suggestion that Amodu, Keshi, Siasia and even the likes of Okpala be appointed in a consortium of coaches for the World Cup is good. I buy it and I want to urge the federation to consider it seriously.”
Everybody has said it all! We just hope those in authority would not allow the seemingly endless interferance of the “DEVIL” in each world cup qualifications to prevail. We just have to get it right this time. No foreign coach please!. We are really suffering from a complex!. If we needed a foreign coach it should have been all through the qualification series and not now!. The best combination should be: Amoudi- Technical Adviser, Keshi-Head Coach, Siasia-Team manager, Omokachi-Asst.coach, and one good goalkeeper trainer. A word is enough for the wise!
Finally we will have two African coaches in South Africa:
1)Rabah Saadane for the Algerian Fennecs
2)Shaibu Amodu for the Nigerian Super Eagles
That means I will be watching only the games of two African teams and the current World Cup holder.
Let’s see if the World Cup will be won by an African team under a white coach (Ghana, South Africa, Ivory Coast or Cameroon).
For the African Cup I will watch the games where in addition to Nigeria and Algeria the following team will be playing:
Mali: Coach Stephen Keshi
Tunisia: Coach Faouzi Benzarti (They have fired the white sorcerer)
Egypt: Coach Hassan Shehata
Malawi: Coach Kinnah Phiri
I am not interested in the games of the remaining 10 African Colonial National Teams whatever their performances may be.
If u sack my Amodu God will not forgive those involved!!
Why can’t keshi come now. I wish him well in his current assignment. I do hope they will listen to people like U.
He should be assured of job security, and allowed free hand to operate. some of us are not convinced he is really ‘in-charge’.
Amodu Shaibu has got every material to take the Super Eagle to a successful World Cup. Nigerians and the football administrators should stop attaching unnecessary sentiments and politics to Nigeria football. The combination of Amadu and Keshi at the World Cup 2010 will surely make a difference. Amodu deserved more from the round leather administrators. Challenge him with a good offer and see good results at the tournament. Kenneth.
The only problem with Amodu is the enormous pressure in Nigerian football that he found difficult to handle. No foreign coach can handle same in the present context.
He is on paper an intelligent, capable and successful coach.
Why the distraction about his sack?. Nigerians will sure regret it if we do.
I have discovered that most Nigerians (including sports journalist and “sports analyst”) are actually ignorant of the game. We only exume emotion, not sound analysis. I want us to start talking about football and sport development, not just “Tactical and Technical”.-words that i have challenged many so called sports analyst to define and many got it wrong.
Lets start talking serious matter.
Let Amodu see out his contract.