Our best players are in Europe

I was tempted to title this week’s column ‘’Let’s boo Claude Puel.’’ I changed my mind because he isn’t well known. I pitied Puel since he is a stop-gap coach, who is on trial and doesn’t have the technical know-how to handle an innately gifted lad such as Nigerian international Kelechi Iheanacho. I can imagine the mental torture Puel subjected Iheanacho to as if Manchester City’s former manager made a mistake in recruiting the former Golden Eaglets star. Perhaps, there is the need to remind Puel that Iheanacho was the best player at the FIFA U-17 World Cup. He beat other players, including those from Europe. Iheanacho couldn’t suddenly become a bad player. But what do you expect from a coach who was suddenly sacked by Southampton?
I just hope that Puel isn’t just biased given the way he pulled out Iheanacho from the Fleetwood Town game in the 80th minute. With the way the game was going, only Iheanacho could have scored for Leicester on Tuesday night. More experienced coaches would have left the Nigerian on the pitch to see if he would score a hat-trick, which could have helped his confidence. Not so with Puel, who must have been under pressure to justify his preference for Japanese Shinji Okazaki.
On a level platform, especially with what Iheanacho exhibited, Puel will do better, if he finds a role for the Nigerian. Puel is fixated about Mahrez and Vardy. But Iheanacho’s intelligence and runs off the ball give him the edge over Okazaki. If Iheanacho gets the playing time Okazaki has, he will score more goals.
Indeed, in a post-match interview on Tuesday, Iheanacho said: “You don’t need to get frustrated. Stick together and work hard every day. If the chance comes, you take it. That slowed things down a little bit. I am happy I am getting to come back. I am feeling better, stronger and working hard in training every day to progress. I hope I will have a very successful and injury-free second part of the season.
“I am fit now and confident. We have so many more games to come. Keep working hard, and keep playing and help the team to achieve. Fans have seen a bit of me, I hope to continue like that in the future and in the games to come.
“The first part of the season is gone and it is the second part now. I am happy to get the two goals and now hope to progress in the future. It gives me more confidence to play well, get back in the team and help them achieve great things in the future,” said Iheanacho.
That is the spirit, dear Iheanacho. Keep training with all the vigour required, knowing that the Russia 2018 World Cup is the platform to showcase your talent and get bigger clubs with experienced coaches to free you from the Leicester bondage. What you did against Fleetwood shows that you are not a finished product nor did you waste Leicester’s money.
Ahmed Musa left Kano Pillars as the best in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) to the home of beautiful football, Netherlands. His exploits took him to Russia from where he joined Leicester City after dominating the league.
However, some players weren’t happy with the huge fee paid for his services and that led to the sack of Italian Claudio Ranieri. Today, Musa is hardly on the match-day squads for the Foxes – not because he is a bad player but because clueless Puel won’t give him a chance.
If Iheanacho had not scored in the FA Cup third round replay against Fleetwood, perhaps, the manager would’ve justified why he left him on the bench since he arrived in October 2017. What is the manager’s reaction to Iheanacho’s performance? Interesting.
“Kelechi showed a good attitude, worked hard for his teammates and got between the lines. His first goal showed a lot of quality and the second was a fantastic move between him and Mahrez,” Puel told the club’s official website. Can you beat that? So, Puel, why did you not allow Iheanacho complete the game, when he was the best player on the pitch? What did Vardy and Okazaki do better than Iheanacho when they came in? Nothing. Leicester’s game went down.
Until Tuesday night, the argument was on the essence of inviting Iheanacho and Ahmed Musa to Nigeria’s World Cup camp if they aren’t playing for their clubs. What we have seen from Iheanacho’s case is that he is a victim of a manager’s warp selection. I always knew that but needed such feats as Iheanacho’s to stress that we need not judge our players by their club performances, especially when it comes to vying for shirts with their host country’s indigenous star. Not in a World Cup year, as such a country is also billed to participate. Our players must consider these variables in picking clubs they want to play for.
Watching the CHAN Eagles play a draw against Rwanda was boring. Most fans hissed all through the game, making the argument that the players were unlucky not to have won the game laughable, given the pedigree of the two countries in world football. Not one player in the team showed any trait of being capable to handle World Cup matches. Those in Morocco are upstarts. Even if Nigeria wins the trophy, none of them, except the goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa, can get a World Cup shirt. It is clear now that our best players are in Europe, with the way borderline players such as Iheanacho played on Tuesday night.
Advocates of having a Nigerian handler for the Super Eagles during big competitions such as the World Cup always talk about using the domestic league to judge the development of the game in Nigeria. Their submissions are laced with sentiments and patriotism, which don’t add up to growth when we are pitched against the rest of the world.
Football isn’t as simple as kicking the round object around the field by 22 players for 90 minutes. Players’ skills and how they go about interpreting the instructions given to them by the coaches are sacrosanct. Where the coaches’ technical savvy is obtuse and dense, it reflects in how the boys play the game, which the greatest Edson Arantes do Nascimento once described as beautiful.
Watching the Nigerian team groomed by our coaches can be boring and frustrating. Our game isn’t exciting, not because the players lack the skills. The players are as good as the coaches. Our domestic players lack the basic rudiments of the game, such as controlling the ball and making good passes that could lead to goals. Besides, our playing pattern is laborious and lacks imagination, which make it not exciting.
The structure of the domestic league is faulty and incapable of producing the desired results, especially where the administrators think they are the best. Our domestic league administrators, including the regulators, are self-serving and myopic. They are easily hoodwinked by what is found outside the country, without looking at our peculiarities. No deliberate effort is made to train and re-train the coaches and the auxiliary staff, in a bid to improve the quality of skills impacted on the players at all levels. This is why watching the domestic league can be a nightmare.
Rather than evolve a system that would enhance the growth of the game at the grassroots, our administrators prefer to roam European countries looking for templates which create more problems for the system, when the initiators leave office. Globally, clubs are encouraged to have academies where the youngsters are taught the rudiments of the game. These rookies become the future stars of such big teams, with the exceptional ones going to bigger teams, which translates to big revenues for the teams they have left.
Unfortunately, our domestic clubs don’t think it is necessary to have youth teams. The management members have refused to see the league as a business. Rather than fashion how their teams can attract the fans to watch their matches, they are contented with taking government money.
No investor will do the business of sports where the government holds over 70 per cent of its equity. The government, which owns most of the clubs, should encourage the team’s management to outsource their revenue. Sadly, the regulators of the domestic league like to err on the side of caution instead of enforcing the rules that encourage commercialisation of clubs’ operation, with particular reference of taking them to the Nigeria Stock Exchange.
If it means having only five clubs which satisfy the rules of running as a professional outfit, let the league matches begin. With time, others will take it seriously and do what is required to qualify as a professional team. This idea of clubs owing their players and coaches wages of over nine months is cruel. Equally worrisome is the manner in which some governors whose states own the clubs behave towards them as if they are doing the players and coaches a favour by paying them as and when due.
It was quite appalling to watch how a particular governor allowed his security operatives to manhandle players, especially the girls who stormed the Government House in a peaceful protest. They were beaten groggy and made to look like criminals, not sports ambassadors of the state, which is what they are. Don’t remind me that nothing is happening to the governor. Elsewhere, the ignoble act would cost him his future in politics.