By Onochie Anibeze   & Richard Animam
On the pitch with Lars Lagerback as Eagles coach, Daniel Amokachi failed with the Green Eagles in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Chinedu

Outside the pitch and in the studios of Supersport, Daniel, The Bull, was brilliant and celebrated in the whole continent of Africa.

His analyses on television were apt and portrayed in superb light and the experts used him till the final.
“Thanks for the observation. Many have said the same thing.

That shows Daniel Amokachi knows the game theoretically and practically. As coach of Nasarawa United, I took them from nowhere to finish in the top four in the country and played the Champions League and qualified for the league stage.

That was Nasarawa and not the big clubs in Nigeria. I was given a WAFU assignment and within few days built a team that won the WAFU Cup. I know this job, I know football. Football is my life.

I play it, eat it, dream it, sleep it and live it. It is a statement of fact. I’m not boasting. My coaching is as good as my analysis and reading of the game which everybody hails.”
Why did you and Eagles fail in South Africa then?
The interview was explosive, vintage Amokachi.

“Thank you for that question. First, Nigeria made a mistake by sacking Shuaibu Amodu few months to the World Cup. He qualified the team but everybody wanted his head. At the end, we have seen the end result.

Sacking Amodu was the first mistake. The second was hiring a coach from a Scandinavian country especially one that did not have any African experience. In Nigeria, we have players with flair so if you are going for a foreign coach it will be proper to consider a Dutch coach or coaches from Brazil, South Americans or coaches from countries that have similar football culture for easy adaptation and combination.”

This reporter cut in to remind him that it was government through the PTF that insisted on last minute change and hired Lagerback.

“Our football will do better if we privatise it in a way that government will not have overbearing influence,” Amokachi retorted and continued on why Nigeria failed in South Africa.

“When Lagerback was hired he said that he would only bring one coach and that the rest would be home coaches. Those who employed him applauded. But the man eventually came with four coaches and never consulted us. You are new to a country without background information or knowledge about their players and you decide not to consult the home coaches who knew these players? A 30 man list was drawn up in London and none of us had any input.

Later the final list of 23 was made and we were not consulted. During the press conference to announce the team, a journalist said “but this is Amodu’s team, same players, same everything, nothing new?.” I said to myself that when Amodu said the these players were the best Nigeria had at the time people disagreed.

“The World Cup started and the same problem continued. We only knew about team selection when Lagerback was announcing it in the pre-match meeting. We were not consulted on team selection, tactics or anything before match. It was only when something was going wrong during the match that the man would turn around and ask question.

Ask Alloy Agu, Fatai Amoo, and Austin Eguavoen. We were in camp but were not allowed to make any contribution. Even Eguavoen who was going round to monitor other teams could not also contribute so what was he monitoring?

“Do you blame Lagerback? I wouldn’t. If you employ a coach and pay him N45m a month and he knows that his Nigerian assistants are on N1m a month will he respect those coaches? Of course he will not. That was exactly what happened. I have read that I said that Lagerback was overpaid.

I did not say any such thing. My position is that if you pay a foreign coach N45m a month it will be fair if his Nigerian assistants earn about N10m a month. A few things could have possibly been done differently but we were not allowed to make contributions.

It is important that Nigerians know the truth because we know what our problem is but they do not respect us. Every time we fail they inaugurate a committee to find out what went wrong but that does not stop us from failing again. Everybody knows the truth.

If Keshi qualified a country like Togo for World Cup do you want to tell me that such a person cannot coach Nigeria with more talents? We know our problem but we don’t want to help our country. It is painful and shameful.”
This is just a tip of the iceberg. Watch out for the full interview on our pages next week. It is Red-Hot Exclusive.