By Fred Edoreh
After the game with South Africa, I have read comments like:
“Exactly what tactics was the Super Eagles playing?”
“This Super Eagles would have had nothing to offer at the World Cup.”
All sad comments, but they underscore the concerns of the fans.
For me, it is not just about the World Cup. It is about having a well blended team that is solid in defence, with fluid and swift midfield transition and bullish in attack.
I repeat that, from my understanding, football is a war game. It is about attacking and defending. So, it starts with the assembly of intelligent captains and commanders, what we call the core of a team. Then lethal arsenals and bold fighters, all well trained in the art of the warfare.
There are six key elements needed in an attack to crash the enemy’s defence: Purpose, Plan, Surprise, Speed, Energy and Force. You can’t go wrong with these.
First, they have always to be like Gideon’s soldiers: Ready to go. So, what was all that about having always to lose a key player early in every game? Like Osimhen getting out early against Rwanda and Aina getting out early against South Africa? How did that always have to happen? We no chop well or na juju? How could we allow ourselves to be so treated?
Again, it is just mere beauty to have players stringing passes without employing the critical elements of attack when they get to the opponents area. That is what they call beautiful nonsense, isn’t it? Because, what do you achieve passing or dribbling beautifully when your opponent is having time to fall back to populate, mount and build defence against whatever you are doing? An attack has to be unexpected, surprising, speedy and forceful!!!!
Yes, dribbling skills are important, but it must come with an end game. I dont want to call names, but all that ball carrying and leg overs by many of our upfront players, without articulate goal sense, amounts to nothing. The rule, always, is if you don’t shoot, you don’t kill. This speaks to fire power. You must have it.
I observe that we have had a somewhat sassy or “sekzi” offensive for sometime, and we have not posted good showings with them in as many competitions of the senior team in the past one and half decade.
Recall when we had Kanu Nwankwo and Victor Agali to anchor our attack. They had skills but could easily be checked, especially in African football. Their combination in the Super Eagles did not succeed, not because they were not good players, in fact, Kanu was excellent, but they were not forceful nor bullish nor speedy enough.
That is why while when Westerhorf had a Jay Jay Okocha, he also had a Rashid Yekini; while we had a Mikel Obi in Chelsea, we had a Didier Drogba. For Yekini and Drogba, the emphasis was not about beauty, it was all about the goal, anyhow it came.
Again, there must be attacking variations and options. While we had a straightforward Yekini, we had sly attackers, attacking midfielders and wingers like Siasia, Mutiu and Finidi. They all provided options such that when Yekini was caged after his first goal at USA’94, the team still had fire.
Recall also the Jose Mourihno days in both Chelsea and Inter Milan? Notwithstanding some fans’ attititude to his “bus parking” defence style, for all the tiki taka for which we celebrated Barcelona, he had an answer and took them severally by surprise.
I cannot forget Barca vs Inter. I cannot forget Barca vs Chelsea, how Barca persistently pressed Chelsea into their half but, boom, Mikel got a turnover and sent Drogba off.
They didn’t just play. They played with a plan, and when they broke, Barca had no answer.
In the game at Bloemfontein, I understood Iwobi’s intended penetrative passes, sadly with the other players seemingly not trained for his style, but Calvin was the best man for me.
He understood that the team didn’t just have to be running and passing about. They were supposed to be on a mission to kill.
We saw him move up from the defence with purpose, building the attack and crashing on the South African defence to force in that goal. He was purposeful, speedy and bullish about it. That attack was quite different from the normal pattern which the South Africans had been containing.
It reminded me about Amokachi and why we called him the bull, about George Weah, who also always forced his attack on the opponent.
Par the 2026 World Cup, I do not know if the milk has finally spilled, but whether we qualify technically or not, we should be honest with ourselves, that we do not have a competitive or winning team. We are just playing average football.
So, we need now to redesign the play book of the Super Eagles and to define the kind of “personnel character” we need to execute our offensives and defence.
Yes, there are many good players but not all players come into a game plan. I remember how Aime Jacques refused to use almighty Eric Cantona at the France ’98 World Cup; how Scolari refused to include Romario, then Brazil’s best, in his 2002 World Cup team, despite even an appeal from the country’s President. They both won those World Cup.
I recall that it took a relatively unknown Mba to deliver for Steve Keshi at the AFCON 2013, that it took a somehow unexpected Amunike to deliver at the Tunisia’94 AFCON and Olympic ’96 finals.
Let us not just be patching along for every next competition. Let us now be intentional about what and how we want the Super Eagles to be, and we can build it.
It is the same Nigeria. The gene of those who made the Super Eagles’ golden era and played us to number 5 in FIFA world ranking is still there. We only need to be clear with our vision of the Super Eagles.
I no fit shout…
