Chris Maduewesi
Member
Chairman of Delta State Sports Commission,Amaju Pinnick believes that the lack of sound technical input coming from the Super Eagles bench cost the team at the 2014 World Cup.Nigeria was defeated 2-0 by France in the second round of the tournament,and Amaju added that the Super Eagles would have done well in the game had they been able to match the French tactically.
"I feel that we as a people should properly situate what we want to achieve in our life. I feel sad when I hear people say that we did well at the World Cup. I also feel sad to see that Nigerians are contented with just being amongst the participants in major tournaments like the World Cup" Amaju said in interview with Vanguard Sports.
The chairman of Warri Wolves football club among other things pointed out the discontent that arose in camp which led to the players demanding for their appearance fees.
He also noted that the coaches could have been the ones who instigated the players against the Federation in Brazil.
"So if there is agitation in the team, the first person to point at is the coaches because when any money is paid, they also get a bigger chunk of it. I would not go further than that.
"The predisposing factors are the NFF, who gave the team all the support to succeed. They also provided a 200-seater aeroplane to take Nigerian officials around in Brazil to watch the Super Eagles matches. The facilitating factors are the coaches and what they bring to the team. I do not have anything against Keshi. He has done so well for Nigeria. He remains the first Nigerian to win the Nations Cup as a player and a coach. The records are there, But I feel that he should also come down from his high horse and show respect to the NFF, who are his employers and who have done a lot to make him succeed."
"We failed to go further in Brazil because our coaches did not adopt the scientific approach to winning matches. Football has gone beyond having a coaching crew on the bench. The trend now is to have the technical backroom staff, peopled by expert coaches, who win matches from the bench.
"I give you an example. Berti Vogts was the head of the backroom of the USA team at the World Cup. The story was said in Brazil that during the match against Ghana, that when the Ghanaians equalised, that Klinsmann, who is the coach of the USA team, quickly sent a message to Vogts to analyse the last five minutes of the match. Vogts responded that one of the Ghanaian defenders was limping and that they should exploit his side, which the USA team did and scored the winner. Klinsmann did this because he recognises that he does not see the things that other technical experts could see from afar. And that is largely because a coach is only thinking of winning and what his players are doing. He hardly sees the defects and strong-points of his opponents.
"That is why nearly all the teams at the World Cup have the technical backroom staff. But Nigeria did not have that and that was because Keshi did not want it. He thought that they were going to take his job away and we all saw in Brazil that it could have been very different if we had such technical experts in the backroom, advising Keshi during match days or even before.
"Another example is the injury of Ogenyi Onazi. That was not accidental. It was a deliberate plan by the French backroom staff, who saw Onazi as the only threat to their ambition to reach the next round. Ahmed Musa shone like a star in the first half but was taken out in the second half by the French players, who crowded him and made him ineffective. That is the work of the backroom staff . Football has gone scientific but we went to Brazil with analogue system.
"I also observed during the short stay in Brazil that we were the only team, whose players warmed up before the start of matches without the coaches around to watch and take notes. I may be wrong on this but I saw the French team warm up with their coaches watching and guiding them."