The Africa Cup of Nations has come and gone leaving memories from various aspects depending on who is evaluating the tournament. However, we have to clearly state that it was a domestic coach that won the continent’s biggest football prize for national teams. Well-known foreign coaches like Carlos Quiroz of Egypt, Tom Saintfiet of The Gambia, Antonio Silva Oliveira of Cameroon, etc, fell along the way. We believe Senegal’s triumph with Aliou Cisse is a big statement for domestic coaches on the continent. Cisse lost in the AFCON final as a player in 2002, he also lost as a coach in 2019 but won in the 2021 edition to give Senegal their very first AFCON title.

The patience of the Senegalese federation to retain him in the past seven years is not only crucial, but also very commendable. Today, he is the best coach in Africa based on the AFCON win. No doubt, this is food for thought not only for Nigeria but all other football federation officials in Africa. We make bold to say there is a ‘Cisse’ in every country but the confidence to entrust them with the national team job is the issue. Ghana only recently named another foreign coach, Chris Hughton, as Technical Adviser with a Ghanaian, Otto Addo, as interim head coach. The foreigner could have all the knowledge but he cannot know the players and people more than the Ghanaian coaches.

On February 6, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) announced the reconstitution of the technical crew of the Super Eagles by bringing in former Africa Footballer of the Year, Emmanuel Amuneke, as Chief Coach while former international, Augustine Eguavoen, who led the senior national team to Cameroon, stays as Interim Technical Adviser. It did not come as a surprise because somehow, the move was anticipated for some time until the confirmation came from the federation with the announcement which also stated clearly that the idea of a foreign handler, Jose Paseiro, initially announced by the NFF had been jettisoned.

“Salisu Yusuf is the 2nd Assistant Coach/Chief Coach of the CHAN team and Joseph Yobo is 3rd Assistant while Aloysius Agu remains the Goalkeepers’ Trainer,” NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi stated in the release announcing the reconstitution of the technical crew. “The positive performance of the Super Eagles at the justconcluded Africa Cup of Nations has given hope to Nigerians and boosted our confidence in the present coaching crew to qualify us for the World Cup in Qatar,” he added. We commend NFF’s decision as a brilliant idea because Amuneke has in-depth knowledge of the game and will be an asset to Eguavoen.

The combination will be good and we believe that with the backing of the federation, the Eagles will pick the Qatar 2022 ticket with victory over the Black Stars of Ghana over two legs next month. In Cameroon, Eguavoen showed that a Nigerian can coach the Eagles to attain glory. Amuneke is a member of FIFA and CAF study groups with knowledge of how to get the best results and deal with technical issues in the round leather game. As colleagues in the 1994 class of the Eagles team, we expect a good working relationship from the two contrary to the fears of many followers of the game that they may clash. However, we strongly feel that Salisu and Yobo should have been seconded outright to the country’s CHAN team while Alloy Agu deserves a break. Eguavoen and Amuneke should have been given a chance to bring two more coaches that would work with them.

Alloy has been unable to give Nigerians a solid goalkeeper over the years and should have been replaced perhaps by Vincent Enyeama – a two-time African Champions League winner with Enyimba. Following their dismal showing in Cameroon where they failed to get out of the group stage, it is understandable that the Ghanaians are taking the Qatar 2022 qualifier very seriously and the age-long rivalry between the two countries adds additional spice to the encounter. While we look forward to a long period of having Nigerian coaches in charge of the Eagles, the task of making that a reality undoubtedly starts from the encounter against the Black Stars.

The Eagles are good enough to get to the World Cup and so the new technical crew should work together to get the ticket to Qatar after which other things should fall in place. The NFF should settle all outstanding bills of the team and create a very good template for victory. There should be total support and respect for Eguavoen and his crew just like the NFF gave to former handler Gernot Rohr.

The federation should also be ready to be patient with the domestic coaches to ultimately take Nigeria back to the top on the continent and make the Eagles compete well among the best teams in the world. Football is more than what happens over 90 minutes, many other things are involved and so one expects a perfect result from the Eguavoen, Amuneke combo. We are happy that the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick, wrote on his Twitter handle that the World Cup ticket was not “negotiable”. He must match his words with action in concrete terms to boost the chances of Eagles in having a good game over Ghana’s Black Stars.