The African Mentality
We have commented on this many times. Former Ghanaian great 'Sir' Cecil Jones Attuquayefio coined the phrase to bemoan the fact that African coaches are not given the opportunities that they deserve. They are awarded contracts of fear – the sack awaits at the first sign of failure with short term cheapskate contracts, while Europeans receive unwarranted long-term contracts even if they couldn't find their employing nation on the map.
With few exceptions the hiring of foreign, 'white' coaches with no understanding of the culture or football philosophy of the African nation, has proved disastrous. Berti Vogts failed miserably. It hardly required genius – foresight even – to predict that. The football was horrible and unsuccessful. Under Vogts the Super-Eagles became the Super-Chickens and to be honest they weren't that super.
FC Midtjylland's Nigerian midfielder was kinder in his assessment of his appointment than Vogts deserved. “Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't, because he did good for a while, but they got another coach now – Shuaibu Amodu, so I think we just move on and forget about what has happened in the past and just think about what is coming up and do the good job,” Salami told us. “Actually I don't think I'm afraid at the moment. I've just got to keep my head up and keep on doing the good job and keep playing together. I think we played good in the last match and I think we can do it again.” He wants to play international football – remember the name.
Shambles
But Vogts was not the real villain of the piece. He was offered a lucrative contract and he brought his own ideas without thinking how they would fit the Nigerian set up. That's not his fault. The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) was responsible for the fiasco and took no responsibility. Instead it turned to Shuaibu Amodu again. The football remained horrible, but unlike under Vogts, it was effective.
Amodu refused to listen to demands to blood young talent – Nigerian youth teams were phenomenally successful, but their graduates failed to win selection under Amodu, who stuck rigidly to the old guard. He fulfilled the demands of the NFF, reaching the semi-final of the African Cup of Nations in Angola, winning third place. His reward – the sack.
The Nigerian President Goodlove Jonathan, seems to have dictatorial ambitions. Following the inevitably poor World Cup performance, he disbanded the NFF and tried to take control, backing down after FIFA made it clear that would not be tolerated.
While the NFF must take the lion's share of the blame, the coaches, including Amodu, are not blameless. Remember the talented Salami. He wants to play for the land of his birth, but was getting frustrated waiting. Nigeria faces the prospect of losing his services through stupidity without ever benefiting from them.
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The Lost Revolution (Part One) |
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Osagyefo and the Extraordinary Administrator:
More than half a century the greatest African of the last century – according to a BBC poll – ‘Osagyefo’ Dr Kwame Nkrumah proved himself a visionary in football as well as history. Nkrumah believed that Africans were capable of organisation and achievement and was determined to give Africans the chance to shine.
Football was an essential part of Nkrumah’revolution. He was ably assisted by the greatest sports administrator in African history, the late Dr Ohene Djan. Accra’state-of-the-art stadium is rightly named after him. Djan reorganised Ghanaian sport after independnce was achieved in March 1957. Ghana had not competed in the first three editions of the African Cup of Nations and Djan was determined that the Black Stars as the national team was now called would live up to the name. The best players were seconded from their clubs to the newly created club Real Republicans. This helped them to gel into a formidable team.
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Africa's future roar in Rwanda |
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Written by Remyspero Hounsou
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| 18/01/09
 The 2009 African Youth Championship begins today at Amahoro stadium with eight African countries battling for a gold medal and eyes will be fixed on the stars of tomorrow that will be re-born from this championship.
GROUP A - Rwanda, Cameroon, Mali, Ghana
RWANDA
The weather, high altitude of 1480 meters above sea level as well as home suport will be in favour of the host team. Yet, they will be up against it in a group that boasts 1995 champions Cameroon, two-time winners Ghana and Mali, who are known to have paraded useful youth teams over the years.
The confidence of the Junior Wasps must be boosted by the fact that the last tournament hosts, Congo Brazzaville, emerged victorious despite not making any impact at this level previously.
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South Africa's First Quota System |
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 South African captain Graeme Smith has never been the most popular of cricketers with international rivals, although the Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan toned down their criticism of him ahead of the summer's tour and Smith too seemed to have mellowed at least a bit, but there was another rivalry that was potentially explosive between Smith and the South African-born Kevin Pietersen. The resignations of Vaughan as captain of the Test team due to poor form and one day captain Paul Collingwood added spice to the rivalry between Smith and Pietersen as Smith had previously labelled the new England captain a traitor over the way he deserted the country of his birth to play for England. After the end of apartheid South Africa's cricket board introduced a quota system to ensure that at least one non-white player was included in every team in order to help those players gain experience and eventually compete on merit. It was necessary to combat the discrimination of the past.
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The Super-Eagles Lead Africa |
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 Despite not fielding a number of high profile players including Nwankwo Kanu, John Utaka, Vincent Enyeama, Obafemi Martins, Victor Anichebe, John Mikel Obi, Dickson Etuhu and Seyi Olofinjana in their last qualification match of the first round of the joint 2010 World Cup and African Cup of Nations qualifiers the Super Eagles thrashed Sierra Leone 4-1 in the Abuja Stadium, completing their impressive record of winning every match in their group. It was also the first goal that their miserly defence had permitted and even that was scored by a Nigerian.
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