“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”-George Bernard Shaw
The maiden edition of the CAF Under-23 Olympic African Championship held in Morocco has come and gone with prizes handed out to the deserving teams: Gabon emerged Champions against all odds; Morocco ended as First Runner Up; Egypt finished as Second Runner up-the trio automatically qualified for London 2012.
West African side, Senegal still have a chance to join the London 2012 party if they win their scheduled play-off with an Asian team in the coming months. These teams would be hoping to emulate the successes recorded by their illustrious predecessors like Nigeria and Cameroon who respectively brought honours to the continent by winning the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Football Tournament and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Football Tournament (OFT).
It is a shame that Nigeria who nearly won the OFT at the Beijing 2008 only to be stopped by Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the final, failed to cross the Rubicon to the chagrin of the public and press. As I said here last week, the blame should be placed squarely at the doors of the coaching staff who failed to plan (or better put, planned to fail) having failed to realise that the African Championship in Morocco was out of the FIFA’s mandatory calendar that would have compelled European clubs to release players that were hitherto the fulcrum of the team.
Yet there are lessons to be learned here and we don’t have to look further than the successful teams at the African Championship in order to plan for the future.
Sometime ago I noted that one of the problems with Nigerian coaches is often their failure to look at how things are done elsewhere and I actually did a two-part series on this in 2007 after my coverage of the 2007 FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Canada.
Following the hypothesis championed by Jack Canfield in ‘The Success Principle: How To Get From Where You Are To Be Where You Are Going’ I argued that it is about time our coaches familiarize themselves with the working modules of their successful counterparts to fashion out a winning formula for Nigeria’s national teams.
In Canfield’s Principle 9, he stated matter-of-factly that ‘success in fact, leaves clues.’ He noted that, there is nothing new under the earth ‘since almost everything you are trying to do have already been done by someone else.’ He further argued that for virtually everything you want to do, ‘there are books and courses on how to do it.’
The same point was also emphasized by Paul Eden in Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite and he actually encouraged anybody ‘to steal (ideas) from anywhere that resonates with inspiration, or fuels your imagination,’ arguing further: ‘Authenticity is invaluable while originality is non-existent.’
Elizabeth Quinn, a renowned exercise physiologist and fitness consultant equally outlined that an any coach that desire success must seek for new information: “While a good coach knows a great deal about a sport (s) he must continue to learn and develop new training techniques. Staying up to date of new research, training and rehab information, attending coaching clinics, camps, and seeking out tips from elite coaches and athletes is a sign of a great coach. “
So rather than cry over split milk following the unprecedented failure of all the national teams to qualify for any international competition next year, think the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF) should rake-up the pieces and strategize for the future. Think it’s is no longer fashionable to say that being a former national team player is a prerequisite to coaching any of the national teams again based on recent experiences that brought only tears and pains to the teeming fans. Sorry, I digress.
How did Gabon break their duck by winning their first continental honour? How did Morocco returned to winning ways after years in the doldrums? How The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (RMFF) did pulled their chestnut from the fire after slump by all its national team?
Morocco’s Dutch coach, Pim Verbeek gave a rare insight in an interview posted on the Confederation of African Football portal: “The Royal Moroccan Football Federation is keen to develop and strengthen the country’s talent and qualifying for major tournaments like this one and the Olympics set this programme on sound footing.
“The Royal Academy is doing some fantastic work nurturing players for competent junior sides at U-17, U-20 and U-23. This bodes well for the future of Moroccan football and l am pleased that Federation after seeing Morocco struggle a bit of the years to reach AFCON finals and other major competitions has shown commitment to rebuilding Moroccan football. I am pleased to be part of this programme and believe this qualification for Olympic finals will go some way in encouraging the work currently on-going in Moroccan football development.”
With the exemption of the Atlas Lions, Verbeek is in charge of all RMFF’s youth teams and this I think would help in systematic transition of players through the under-age cadres and ultimately to the senior national team.
Another fundamental problem with the Nigerian football has to do with the fact that players so discovered at the youth levels hardly progress through the rank to play for the Super Eagles. So many reasons have been construed for this principal of which is age cheating.
In 2007, the Golden Eaglets won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Korea and one would have expected that the bulk of that team should be the axle of the Under-23 team today but the reverse seemed to be the case.
Recall that Vanguard Newspapers wrote a critical editorial on Wednesday, September 12, 2008 following the victory of the Golden Eaglets asking: “What will this victory change in the way Nigeria manage sports? Hardly anything changes. Victories in 1985 and 1993 produced great rallies, long promises and precious little after.”
Today, the current board of the NFF are wiser and they need to be commended and encouraged to deal ruthlessly wit players that falsify their ages to feature for the age-grade teams.
The point was made by Barrister Chris Green in his riot act to the national Under-17 Women’s team, Flamingoes: “The NFF wants to make this clear now: There is zero tolerance for age cheating. We no longer have any patience for players who would come to the national team, falsify their age to be able to play age-grade competition and fail to fulfil their potential years after.”
It goes without saying that it is not only the responsibility of the NFF to clean the Augean stable especially as it bothers on the age cheat. Everyone desirous to see the good old days of the 1990s when Nigerian football was on the high must ensure that only the right players are fielded at the youth levels. If that is done, the failure of the Dream Team V at the African Championship would be a temporary setback.
Wise words from Sambawa but.... 
I actually pinched myself not knowing whether I was in a dream land following comments attributed to erstwhile Sports Minister and National Sports Commission (NSC), Seidu Samaila Sambawa on the way out of the quagmire for Nigerian football.
“The downward trend in Nigerian football will continue until such a time when the NSC will come to its responsibility and disengage from the continual rift with the football federation,” Sambawa said.
Good talk. But why should we allow Sambawa to insult our collective sensibility when he actually contributed to the problem facing Nigerian football today.
Is it not the same Sambawa that empowered the self-appointed stakeholders against the Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima and co in 2006? Is it not the same Sambawa that took on everyone including the press for calling him to order in the way he was handling things following the contentious 2006 elections into the board of the football federation?
At the height of the crisis, John-Joshua Akanji (my colleague then at SoccerStar), sent a terse sms to Sambawa: ‘your action and handling of the NFA election is despicable and not in the best interest of Nigerian football.’
But what was Sambawa’s reply?
“Thank you. Please, don’t ever send me this type of text message,”Sambawa countered Akanji. “If you are an ignorant person, not I. You and some of your corrupt and selfish friends are responsible for the mess in Nigerian sports in the name of journalism. Please, note that I am not just a minister but also an international publisher, and in my media chains we don’t do junk journalism. What are your credentials?”
In fact, it was based on this brusque reply by Sambawa that I engaged him in that my famous article: Sambawa, what are your credentials?
I stated inter alia: “I wonder the kind of publisher Sambawa is when he cannot even separate the grains from the chaff. But who would blame him? I found it strange to hear from Sambawa that he has a media chain because the question everyone asked after his appointment last year was: Samba – who?
It was as if he came from another planet because many did not know his antecedents. It is doubtful if Sambawa is listed in Nigeria’s who-is-who. Until he was thrust unto the Ministry of Sports, Sambawa was a Mr Nobody because we can’t even put a face behind his name. So, what are his own credentials?”
So why is he trying to stand history on his head when he too actually participated in the bazaar to kill Nigerian football. Sambawa like every dog had his day at the NSC but he failed to do the right thing. He should stop pontificating now as if he has any workable solution to the problem at hand.
Goodbye Bada!
I struck friendship with the late Police Officer, Sunday Bada long after his career as a star athlete was over.
I remember vividly that encounter at the imposing Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja in 2003 when we were all jostling to be accredited for one of the events heralding the 8th All Africa Games. I actually walked to him and requested for an interview and pronto he acceded to my request.
It was Bada at his talking best as we spoke on diverse issues: from police to his speciality as a quarter-miller. The interview published in the Sunday Sun of June 2, 2003 was crafted with the headlines: Policeman Sunday Bada Blasts: ‘I’m Too Big For Egunje’
Bada, who earned his stripes as a police officer on account of his exploits in track and field for Team Nigeria, argued that the society gets the kind of police it deserves insisting that he was too refined to bring himself low by demanding N20 at police checkpoints.
One of the first people to call me when the interview was published was foremost athletics writer, Dare Esan of Complete Sports: ‘Moraks just saw your interview with Bada. It was a nice one; you know not many would have thought of that angle.’
Years after when I needed to speak to Bada, all I needed was to say that the journalist you told ‘I’m too big for egunje.’ He would smile and says ‘no problem.’
Upon his return from India where he was treated following a near-fatal accident, I sent a reporter, Gbenga Abulude to him for an interview. That must be one of the major interviews he granted before death came calling on Monday after he slumped at the Surulere National Stadium- a place he actually entertained all of us. May God grant his family the fortitude to bear this loss? Good bye, Bada.
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