Super Eagles: Keeping an eye on the future

IT took quite a while for Nigerians to grasp the realities of the problems of unsatisfactory achievements by the country’s senior football team, the Super Eagles, at international meets.

Being a man of good hunches, I knew long ago that at the core of the problem was age-cheating specifically and governmental interference generally.

Really, the approach of Coach Gernot Rohr is to build a team based on the merits of actually being young rather than the merits (or lack of it thereof) of claiming to be 10 years or  younger than one’s true age.

The outcome of Rohr’s philosophy (let us for now happily call it so) is clear for all to see.

Nigerians can now gauge our true strengths and weaknesses against opposing teams.  If humility permits, let us also admit that the massive injection of foreign-raised Nigerian-rooted bi-racials like Carl Ikeme, Leon Balogun, William Troost-Ekong, Tyrone Ebuehi, and foreign-raised Nigerian-rooted mono-racials like Alex Iwobi, Ola Aina and Brian Idowu has raised the standard of our play immensely.

This is because these  lads did not wait until their early 20s before they chose the route of football as a profession.

Thus, down the line in the future when Gernot Rohr eventually bids farewell to the national team, the person currently in the right circumstance that can fill his position is Michael Emenalo, a former Director of Football at Chelsea Football Club.

Mr. Emenalo would relate very well with highly-sensitive and technically-inclined youngsters of Nigerian heritage who are presently in football academies scattered all over Europe.

Nigerian football has really come of age.

Sunday Jonah

Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.