Give me Super Eagles

O   UR Super Eagles will soon be on the march again. Our Super Eagles will soon be campaigning for new laurels again. Our Super Eagles will soon be gunning for a spot for the 2018 World Cup which Russia is going to host. Yes without a doubt even though a Chris Giwa does not want this to happen. But regard this as a seeping thought which should not be given the slightest semplice consideration any longer in our heart of football music.

My absolute concern here is with the fortunes of our Super Eagles as Russia 2018 approaches. We don’t want further frustration, anguish and heart-brokenness. We agonizingly missed the last two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations. We don’t want a repeat of that agony in 2018. In fact, let me state and stress here that it must be our eternal wish to appear qualitatively in different football competitions within and outside Africa. And the eternal wish must be turned into eternal reality. To participate fully and highly qualitatively in FIFA-organized football fiestas and CAF-organized contests must henceforth be our unfailing sempiternal duty for which we must always be efficiently prepared in the manner of a top football country that is semi-perparatus.

What do I mean? Clearly, you should understand that I simply mean that henceforth we should accept no half-measures from those running our football at whatever level. And our football administrators and our coaches must pay the prize(s) of semi-successes and of failures, full or semi-failures. The present NFF president and members (and future ones) who fail us must join all failed coaches to quit their posts – if they fail to give us deserved laurels.

Make no mistake about it: we have since passed the era of competing for the sake of competing. We must always compete to win henceforth; if not, moneys spent for preparations for this or that competition and for participating in this or that competition will merely go down the drain beginning from the pockets and purses of those administering our sports, especially football. Once the gentlemen and ladies in charge of this or that sports federation get this message they will sit up, sit down, sit forward, sit backward, sit sideways and sit properly to run our sports properly. And when I say they will run our sports properly I mean they will run them with the sole and right intention towin us laurels. If they don’t have the caliber of persons to give us laurels, of course, they won’t allow them to be entered for the respective competitions, including the Olympics. Also, if the right preparations are not in place before a competition begins they ought not to go for the competition.

Now everything said so far assists me to alight from my aero-plane of thoughts concerning our Super Eagles who should be handed to me urgently as coach, as manager – if we must go to Russia 2018. You may not take me seriously. But you must.

For the World Cup play-offs, we are in what many football pundits call the “Group of Death” where Algeria, Cameroun and Zambia are. Wrong. We are in the Group of Life. The four top football countries including ours in this group have won the Africa Cup of Nations at different times. They are also World Cup veterans and Argonauts. The competition for the sole spot to come out of the group cannot but be highly fierce and qualitatively keen. But our Super Eagles will come out clear and clean as the sole spot winners if I am incharge – or if any Nigerian manager who has my keen foresight is in charge.

Today’s column should be taken as my formal application for the Super Eagles’ job that has been ingloriously declared vacant even though a tested Nigerian coach is already warming the post-albeit on a “temporary” basis for a reason, a questionable one, some people somewhere do not wantto make public. And why really can the present occupier, a Nigerian, not have it on permanent basis? We will know the correct reason(s) when the chicken comes home to roost.

Now what are my credentials for the job? Did I play football to the highest level? No – but not because I could not. In my time football, you know, was not what it is now. Some of my play-mates, seniors as well as juniors who did, today regret doing so. In any case, the Portuguese Jose Mourinho and our own dear ShuaibuAmodu- who has departed – may Allah bless his football soul – did not play the game to the highest level, but they will forever be regarded as amazing successes as coaches.

Do I have any coaching licence? No – but what I have is far superior to the foremost licence. I can go on and on…. But I won’t.  Let me just have the Super Eagles with these two simple conditions: pay me no salary until I take my team to Russia; grant me free, uninhibited access to President Buhari or our vice-president or both any time my football mind desires to meet them after necessary periods of football contemplation; and let me choose my players such as Victor Osimhen and co, and see if I won’t smash Clemens Westerhof’s World Cup record (when he was here as Super Eagles’ coach, the only coach so far in  our football history who had free access to topmost power). I can go on and on, but I won’t until the day that is the day when this transcendental columnist shall speak again.

Meanwhile, we all must urge our powers that be in the presidency especially to compel those to be compelled to give me our Super Eagles. Or do I lobby for the post as we lobby for this or that post in Nigeria whether or not we are qualified for it? And who should I apply to as my political god-father and god-manager? Phew!