Oliseh: Players may soon start turning down Eagles invitation
Sunday Oliseh, the Super Eagles coach, is worried that a time may soon come when footballers begin to turn down invitations to the national team.
Oliseh, who was speaking on the failure of his team to qualify for the quarter-finals of the African Nations Championship (CHAN), urged the Nigerian Football federation (NFF) to put its house in order or risk more woeful representations of the country at football tournaments.
He maintained that his team’s ouster from CHAN had nothing to do with technical or tactical wherewithal, but with “lack of motivation”.
“I think the players need better motivation next time and if we don’t get that on track, we are going to struggle big time,” he said.
“At the moment, I will have to wait and see how we will move ahead. First and foremost, I will have to go back home and I decide personally on what to do next.
“Our elimination has nothing to do about physical or technical or tactical aspect of it. I think it’s more moral. And that is why I said we need better motivation. I am going to repeat what I told you the last time: we were like a car without petrol.
“We are all Nigerians and we should understand what I am trying to say. Maybe that could work at the under-age level but when you are talking at this magnitude, we should not deceive ourselves.”
He promised to integrate some of the players into the main Super Eagles team, saying: “Look, I didn’t do all this job on the CHAN players to let them go.
“Just as I said, you saw the work on them, it’s not something I did because I was bored. No! We have a plan, the plan is to integrate them into the team. Seven or eight of them by God’s grace are going to be integrated when we play the next qualifier.”
But Oliseh repeated his warning of a bleak future unless the present way of dealing with the senior team changes.
“First thing that we have to do is that we have to put our house in order. I only have one fear and I will share it with you; it is that by the time we send the next invitations out, the players don’t start refusing to play for Nigeria,” he said.
“That is something that is scary but it is real. And we have to start thinking, we are not going to work miracles anymore. I am just afraid that if we don’t put our house in order, we might invite players for the next qualification and maybe some players I am afraid… because already I am getting phone calls from them, they are still asking about what they are being owed. And it’s like that.
“It’s no secret that everybody knows that the national team, ever since some months now, is highly under-funded. It’s no secret anymore. We have to scrap to bring out the best. I was expecting things to be difficult, because when you are starting a new philosophy, a new style of work with the home-based team, trying to bring in some new players and some new style, it is normal that you are not working with the status quo, that you will have obstacles along the way.
“We were expecting those and we were able to surmount them. But that not withstanding, I am still very proud of my assistants and what they’ve been able to make with this team.”
I’m surprised that the reporter sat there and listened to Oliseh declare that the team failed, not for lack of technical and tactical ability/input but for poor motivation and morale, and failed to challenge him? I saw boys who struggled to control the ball. I saw defenders who just kicked the ball away in any direction. I saw players who couldn’t string passes together, or make dribbles, against a clearly more skillful Guinea, and he talks about money? Is he saying they were better motivated against Niger and Tunisia than they were against Guinea? They were so poorly motivated they couldn’t get a draw against Guinea? Let’s even indulge him and accept it was down to motivation. How much more motivation could Guinea have had? That’s a small impoverished country. They couldn’t be earning more allowances than our players. They couldn’t afford two weeks camping in South Africa. They cannot afford an indigenous expatriate coach based in Europe and earning N5m monthly. They looked inferior to us on the pitch. Yet they trounced us. What better motivation can there be for a home-based player than an opportunity to sell himself to the world? He loses my respect when he tries to shirk responsibility by making untenable excuses.
@Igbo Amadi-obi well said bro. With each game that passes Sunday Oliseh is looking less and less capable of delivering in his job. With his exposure and educational background, if performances don’t improve drastically I believe he will jump before he is pushed. I may be wrong.