daniel chigunwe
LAGOS. — Former Super Eagles striker Daniel Amokachi has blamed Nigeria’s failure to make the Qatar 2022 World Cup on the quality of players invited to the national football team.
Amokachi believes that the Nigerian national team selectors invite average dual-citizenship players just because they were born outside the country. The former Enyimba coach pointed out that the Super Eagles have departed from the format that helped them win the 1996 Olympics Gold and the 2013 AFCON title. In an interview with SuperSport, Amokachi stated that most of the foreign-bred players invited by the Super Eagles were not even considered by their country of birth.
The 49-year-old went further to say that those players would not even make the squads for their birth countries.
Amokachi said: “Quality-wise we can’t take it away from Nigeria. Every day Nigeria is blessed with one immigrant player who is playing out there and he’ll always come up and say I turned down my birth country.
“I want to play for Nigeria when their country of birth never looked for them. They won’t even make their birth nation squads.”
Amokachi noted that the Nigerian national team does that have the structure to develop home-grown football stars that made the squads like the Atlanta ‘96 squad so great.
The former Super Eagles striker pointed out that home-grown stars were a huge part of the Atlanta ‘96 squad and the Stephen Keshi-led 2013 squad that won the AFCON.
“Unfortunately for us Nigeria, we’ve thrown away our developmental structure which we had that made us win the 1996 Olympics gold medal, that made that generation so great,” Amokachi explained.
“Stephen Keshi came into play and revived it and we saw how we won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.” The Super Eagles of Nigeria crashed out of qualification for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup after losing the ticket to the Black Stars of Ghana. The Augustine Eguavoen-led side played a 0-0 draw in the first leg at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi.
A 1-1 second-leg draw at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja saw the Black Stars clinch the World Cup ticket based on the away goals rule. Meanwhile, Former Super Eagles manager Sunday Oliseh is currently the leading candidate to manage Nigeria’s senior men’s football team, according to reports.
Oliseh, who was coach of the Super Eagles between 2015 and 2016, is, according to a report by OwnGoalNigeria, the favourite of Nigeria’s minister for Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare to take over the vacant position.
Last week, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) dismissed the Super Eagles coaching crew led by Austin Eguavoen, following their failure to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar.
The deciding fixture saw Nigeria draw 1-1 with Ghana’s Black Stars in Abuja, after having drawn 0-0 in the first leg in Kumasi.
Now, with a vacuum at the helm of the team and the Super Eagles, expected to regroup in June ahead of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, Oliseh could return as Nigeria’s coach. The report also hints that the NFF are expected to meet with the minister to discuss the failure of the Super Eagles to qualify for the World Cup, with the main agenda, being who replaces Eguavoen.
In April 2020, Oliseh was quoted as saying “I will never coach the Super Eagles again.”
The 47-year-old stated that given his previous unpleasant experience: riddled with contract violations, lack of support, unpaid wages and benefits to his players, assistant coaches and himself, he had no intentions of ever returning to coach the Super Eagles. — Pulse Sports
Online Reporter