Eagle’s job: Don’t judge me with Heartland, Siasia
By Kate Obodo
Since his silver medal winning performance at the Olympic Games, all fingers pointed to Samson Siasia to take over from former Super Eagles coach Shaibu Amodu.
•SiasiaFormer Green Eagles captain, Chief Segun Odegbami justified his call for Siasia, stressing that by the time the 2010 World Cup would be played, Siasia’s players would have graduated into the Super Eagles and he would be the best person to lead them.
For him, it was a natural progression but that did not happen. Amodu later got knocked out of the job and a Swede in person of Lars Lagerback got the nod and the result was Nigeria’s worst outing at the World Cup.
The previous NFA board looked towards Siasia to turn things around and made a provisional offer but the hullabaloo in the football house changed all that. While waiting for the NFA to make up their mind, Siasia decided to take up an offer to manage Owerri based CAF Champions League campaigners -Heartland FC.
After crashing out of the competition, the former U-23 national team coach appealed to Nigerian football fans not to judge him with the performance of Heartland FC in the CAF Champions League competition.
Siasia said he went for the Heartland job with high hopes and was determined to put up a credible performance but at a point it dawned on him that he needed to do more work on the team he inherited from the previous technical adviser.
“It is so unfortunate that things are happening the way they are. The issue is that some of these players find it difficult even to control the ball. They really lack the ability to raise their game. My mission in Heartland was to polish the entire team and win the CAF champions League but the players were not what I expected.
“The situation does not affect my stay in Owerri and I’m not in any way regretting taking up the job because I like what I am doing. I enjoy the job a lot. Situations like this is part of the game, sometimes you get the best sometimes you do not.
This is just one of the challenges I’m confronted with which I know I will surmount. For next season, we intend to do radical changes in the team, we are going to look at getting a lot of new players to beef up the team.
“The experience I had in Heartland was just a victim of circumstance but if anyone is capitalizing on that performance to stop me from the Eagles job, I think that would be a big mistake. People should not judge me with the Heartland job,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Heartland chairman Ignatius Okeahialam has praised the work done by Siasia, despite the club’s inability to advance beyond the group stages of the CAF Champions League.
The club who were finalists last year, finished bottom of the group with five points after just one win in six matches, but Okeahialam said Siasia was distracted by negotiations over the Super Eagles job.
“I can understand his frustrations,” Okeahialam said.“He so much wanted to be coach of the national team and in one game he joined our team at the match venue after staying back to discuss with FA officials.
“There is no way he would have been able to give his all to our course.”
Okeahialam is not one to throw praise around lightly, but he was keen to stress that the club would do everything to keep Siasia after the work he did.
“Yes we are disappointed that we could not go all the way but one thing I know is that Siasia is a very good coach.
“In fact he is one of the best that have ever worked with our club and we intend to keep him.
“In the little time he spent with us, you could see the difference and we know that the club will gain in the long run if he starts and ends the new season with us.” In the event however, that Siasia gets the Super Eagles job, Okeahialam says there is a Plan B.
“We know that he could get the national team job sooner or later so we want to tap from his wealth of knowledge while we have him. “If the job comes, we will have to go for an alternative coach but for now, we want to enjoy what he offers to the team,” he said.
