Oliseh: Rebuilding Eagles without plan

Oliseh Whistle

 Oliseh: Rebuilding Eagles without plan
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By Our Reporter  on November 1, 2015   Sport
BY GEORGE ALUO
FOR Nigeria, the race to the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup will begin later this month when the Super Eagles storm the Swazi city of Lobamba to face soccer minnows, Swaziland in the first round of the qualification series.
Relatively new Eagles head coach, Sunday Oliseh last week released the list of players he intends to use to prosecute the game which ordinarily should be a walk over for Nigeria.
The Swaziland national team, the King’s Shield (Shilangu) is rated 135 in the current FIFA ranking and it is on record that the side has not made any impact in the round leather game at the international level. The only thing going for the team as it pre­pares to face Nigeria is the fact that she made a mincemeat of her fellow minnow, Djibouti 8-1 in the prelims before being drawn to face the Eagles in round one.
Although the immediate task ahead for the Eagles is on paper an easy one, the coach, Oliseh can not afford to take any chances as doing so could turn out to be a costly mistake. Foot­ball is one game in which anything, just anything can happen if a team goes into a match ill prepared or de­cides to underrate her opponent.
History of the game is replete with occasions where obscure teams sprang the mother of all surprises. One that readily comes to mind and interestingly at the biggest stage was the 2-1 defeat debutants Algeria handed almighty Germany at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
So one can understand why Oliseh must go to Lobamba with the nation,s best legs. Beyond that match, for the Eagles gaffer, the encounter is another opportunity to continue the team’s re building process which he started since taking over from Ste­phen Okechukwu Keshi.
And it is that rebuilding process that some of us as stakeholders are interesting in.The question to ask is this: Is Oliseh rebuilding with solid materials and with a well drawn out plan or is he rebuilding on a shaky ground?
Given the way the coach has gone about the job right from his very first game against Tanzania, one would without mincing words say he (Oliseh) is rebuilding without any plan. The coach has remained incon­sistent. He would say one thing which people will applaud only to do the opposite when it comes to execution.
First, before the game against Tanzania, Oliseh said he would be calling up only players that are playing for top European clubs and that bench warmers should forget about the Eagles. When he released his list of invited play­ers for the match, what we saw was players plying their trade in the Rus­sian league, while the likes of Odion Ighalo, Victor Moses and Mikel Obi were left out.
He went to Tanzania, saw and failed to conquer. In fact, Oliseh was saved the humiliation of outright de­feat in his first outing by the heroics of goalkeeper, Carl Ikeme whose bril­liant saves denied Tanzania victory.
After that shambol­ic perfor­mance against Tanzania, Oliseh faced another litmus test in the international friend­lies against Congo and Cameroon in Belgium. The coach did not come out of it without exposing his inex­perience. His bust up with Vincent Enyeama over the Eagles captaincy has since led to the Eagles keeper quit­ting the national team. Agreed, Oliseh has the right to name a new skipper moving forward, but he went about it the wrong way. Again, the same Oliseh who said he decided to strip Enyeama of the captain’s band since he is on the verge of retirement has recalled a play­er, Obafemi Martins, who “retired” from the Eagles three years back. His argument being that Martins is scor­ing goals in the American League (M LS)- a league that is meant for players who could pass for “pensioners.” The question to ask is this: How come the same coach who wants a captain that will remain in the team for a long time in Ahmed Musa now be going for a striker, Martins, who soccer wise has reached menopause? What else could pass for inconsistency? Is Martins also among the players Oliseh plans to rebuild with or is he merely pressing the panic button? Questions begging for answers, no doubt.
On the young players in the team, one finds it irreconcilable a situation where Oliseh thinks Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi deserves a place in the Eagles while Kelechi Iheanacho should wait for his time.
While one is not against Iwobi’s invitation, but it sounds absurd for a player who is in Arsenal’s junior team to have a place in a team in which a Manchester City senior player is being told to wait for his time. Haba Oliseh!
It would be noted that Oliseh did not initially include Iheanacho’s name on his 23- man list for the Swazi game. Iheanacho’s call up was only an after thought and one won’t be surprised if he plays no role when the chips are down in Lobamba.
Moving forward, one would advise that Oliseh sticks to whatever criteria he has spelt out for the invitation of players. He should go for the nation,s best legs as that is what he needs to shame critics who in the first place believe he is not “ripe” for the Eagles coaching job. Inviting players based on “paddy paddy arrangement” won’t help him. Some of us are not unmindful of the fact that four of the “journeymen from Russia” he (Oliseh) called up against Tanzania are players whose soccer careers can be traced to the amateur club of his sibling, Churchill Oliseh.
Oliseh must realize that there is no grammar he and the NFF would speak to convince Nigerians on why the Eagles must not land in Gabon for AFCON 2017.
Given the nation’s soccer pedigree, qualifying for the Nation’s Cup and even the World Cup should be our birth right. The same way nobody can talk about afrobasket (basket­ball) without Angola or African athletics championship with­out Kenya.