Shaibu Amodu is a well known coach in Nigeria, having coached the Super Eagles many times in the past. Currently his position as the coach of the Super Eagles is being threatened (AGAIN!) by numerous bodies, such as the pseudo-governmental Presidential Task Force, former players (Akpoborie and others), many Nigerian fans and some journalists ... What a tough life! It is tough to please people ...
For the record, I feel that he has earned his job and should be retained. I will state though the path to World Cup success is a rough road, and it would be prudent of him to HIRE his own advisers who will give him insight on his opponents. I will elaborate on this and I think that what I propose may be amenable to the many Nigerian football fans.
Amodu's history is well known, but for the record it shall be duplicated here:
CAREER HISTORY
1982 -1985 Mighty Jets [Assistant] Nigeria div I
1986 - 1991 BCC Lions [Assistant] Nigeria div I
1992 El Kanemi Warriors Nigeria div I
1993 - 1994 BCC Lions Nigeria div I
1995 Shooting Stars Nigeria div I
1996 Super Eagles Nigeria
1997 BCC Lions Nigeria div I
1997-98 Orlando Pirates South Africa div I
1998- 1999 Super Eagles Nigeria [Assistant]
2001-2002 Super Eagles Nigeria
In his last stint as Super Eagles Coach in 2002, Amodu was replaced by Festus Onigbinde after a 3rd placed finish at the African Nations Cup DESPITE having qualified Nigeria for the World Cup (sound familiar?). Nigeria subsequently failed at the World Cup, coming last in the group stages after Onigbinde fielded a wide array of questionable players, that can only be colloquially called jam-bodies. In hindsight it would have been better to leave him in place in 2002. Onigbinde did not really bring anything to the table.
A close look at his career (which is beyond the scope of this write-up) will show that he has had a very good coaching career with a lot of success. Despite this success, praise has been hard to come by. Much of his success has been at the club level, starting with the rampaging performances of BCC Lions of Gboko, a club from a small town in Nigeria, that completely dominated the Nigerian League in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His subsequent club coaching roles in Nigeria and South Africa also showed similar successes.
Where Amodu has had some challenges is at the International Level. In tournaments such the African Nations Cup, the Gold Cup, the Confederations Cup and in International Friendlies. His record in these tournaments would be best termed as 'okay'. Despite this, his claim to success is that he has qualified Nigeria twice! Not a small feat. However it is his performances at the international level that have his detractors clamoring for a foreign technical adviser.
Africans view the Foreign Technical Advisers (read ... European Coach) as the solution. Typically a local coach will qualify a country to a major tournament and then be immediately sacked and replaced with a European Coach of questionable pedigree. Perhaps the most disgraceful case was when Otto Pfister replaced Stephen Keshi as the coach of Mali (see ) ...
As evidenced in the Keshi case, historically there have been many problems associated with foreign Technical Advisers ... basically (any coach that tries to reap where they did not sow):
* The Foreign Technical Advisor (henceforth abrieviated TA) is usually paid more than the local Coaches. So much more, that what the TA makes in a month is what the local coach (like Amodu) makes in a year! The carpet is rolled out, they are given a cash advance, a house, a car, a driver and all kinds of benefits and they are often allowed to live in their native country ... all rather pathetic if you ask me, but a great gift for the beneficiary!
* Foreign TAs have had a very poor record. From Carlos Alberto, This Libregts, Berti Vogts and the list goes on. One would have thought that Nigeria would have achieved MORE with all this investment ... but no. The exceptions were the achievements of Father Tiko, Manfred Höner (1988 ANC, but not the Seoul Olympics), Clemens Westerhoff, Jo Bonfrere and Bora Milutinovic. Their successes were due to REAL HARD WORK. They took the the time they had to familiarize themselves with local players, they were based in Nigeria and they had time to mold the team, also in the later years the exporting of several players to Belgium and Holland helped a lot. They worked hard at the grass roots.
The other group generally did not have much interest in LOCAL players and often preferred to fly in from Europe, they also had little tolerance for the common problems such as intermittent pay. Tiko, Höner, Westerhoff, Bonfrere and Bora understood Nigeria well, and knew they could proverbially raise a team from stones on the ground - and they did.
Can Shaibu Amodu Improve?
There is some merit in Shaibu Amodu exploring the weaknesses of his teams, since his qualifying run did not inspire much confidence.
It is well agreed that Amodu's teams tend to be very very conservative and they tend to score very late in the game. This has been a consistent pattern at the International level, exemplified most notably in the 2002 ANC where Julius Aghahowa scored some late goals and the 2010 WC qualification run which was a pain to sit through ...
Thus the way forward may be for Amodu to employ a different approach. I have a few ideas that I will elaborate on these in the coming weeks. But here are my ideas:
1. Hire a professional assistant
Many coaches hire a professional assistant with whom the work closely with. Samson Siasia has Simon Kallika (a Dutch Surinamese trainer), Juergen Klinsmann had Jogi Löw and Mexican-born American assistant coach Martin Vasquez, Sir Alex Ferguson had Mozambique-born assistant coach Carlos Quiroz (now coaching Portugal). As you can see, all of these coaches had very competent (and highly coveted) assistants.
This is perhaps one of the most critical areas where Amodu could set himself up for victory. Hiring an assistant could be helpful in bringing on the necessary experience needed when facing opponents. My suggestion would be for Amodu to bring on Samson Siasia and Hen Ten Cate. Siasia would be helpful in that he has met Lionel Messi twice and has not been able to defeat Argentina. He also has experience playing against Korean sides - In 2005 Nigeria LOST against the South Koreans at the 2005 World Youth Championship in Holland and in July of 2008 Siasia led the Nigerian Olympic squad on a two and half week training tour of South Korea. They played against two local sides, winning both matches before heading on to China.
Henk Ten Cate because he has coached at Chelsea and Barcelona and is very familiar with Nigerian players (Mikel Obi, Ike Uche) and is very familiar with Lionel Messi and European football. Some might argue that the NFF could just hire Ten Cate, however I disagree. Merit must be rewarded and it should be Amodu's role to hire his assistants. If I were Amodu - these would be the two I would try to bring on board. There would be challenges (namely cost), but if not Ten Cate, then perhaps another coach who is familiar with Nigerian players and the foreign opposition.
2. Bring on a talisman
One of Amodu's problems is that he has stuffed the midfield with a wall of defensive midfielders. This fits in with his conservative philosophy. These players are primarily ball winners and defenders whose role is to stop the oncoming attack.
These players are Mikel Obi, Dickson Etuhu, Ayila Yusuf, Sani Kaita, Seyi Olofinjana and Femi Ajilore. These players are all great in their role, but I dare say that they (with the exception of Mikel Obi) would struggle to unlock the Argentinian defense single handedly on June 12th. His conservative philosophy also makes him reluctant to try out new players, as seen in his comments about Dickson Etuhu (discussed further on ...)
A player in the role of a talisman aka a creative midfielder, would provide the necessary link for our strikers. The requirement here is NOT experience, it is simply pure inate skill. There are several players who could fit this role, namely Rabiu Ibrahim, Stephen Worgu and Obiora Nwankwo. Amodu simply needs ONE of these players.
3. Changing his conservative philosophy
In an interview with the Vanguard Newspaper in Nigeria, Amodu commented
"Dickson Etuhu is not on my list because I don't know him and he has not featured in any of the matches I have co-ordinated since I came on board. The devil you know is quite better than the angel you don't know. For now I would make do with the players I'm familiar with".
However a few months later in June, Nigeria played France in France and Amodu was forced to play without a few key starters. In came Sam Sodje, Joseph Akpala, Michael Eneramo and Uwa Echiejile. Interestingly enough Nigeria won this game! I think this game was a huge confidence builder for Amodu, and perhaps a lesson that taking some risks does pay off. Some of the regular players are perhaps too predictable and tend to play 'safe' football.
In summary, I think Amodu MUST be retained, however in a 32 team World Cup, 31 teams lose. If he wants to have an edge over the other 32 teams, it would be prudent for Amodu to select his coaching team carefully ... perhaps by bringing on Siasia and Ten Cate who have experience with the opponents that Amodu will face.
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