Former Director-General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Patrick Ekeji, has urged the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to retain Samson Siasia as the Super Eagles Head Coach.
Ekeji said on Thursday in Abuja that this will help to guarantee Nigeria a ticket to the 2018 World Cup finals.
He said experience had shown that Siasia was capable of qualifying the country for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The former Green Eagles coach said any decision by the NFF or the Ministry of Youths and Sports to bring a foreign coach would amount to a “wild goose chase’’.
He said Super Eagles’ failure to qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) should be a big lesson for the federation ahead of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
“The NFF should keep Siasia and give him a mandate, because from my own experience Siasia is one of Nigeria’s top coaches. Now, he has proved his worth more than any other person.
“I urge the NFF to do more by providing Siasia some background information about the opponents we will meet in the qualifiers because a war is half won if you have information about your opponent.
“This is one of the areas the Technical Committee of the NFF must dwell on. There are so many ways they can do this and one of them is through the embassies,’’ the former international said.
He also urged the NFF and the League Management Company (LMC) to make the local league competitive.
Ekeji said this would ensure that about 80 per cent of the national team players were drawn from the domestic league.
The former right full back said Nigeria had the highest number of players in Europe, which had made it difficult to achieve cohesion among the players, especially during competitive matches.
He said majority of the Egyptian players who defeated the Super Eagles were from the domestic league, noting that a team needed proper tactical behaviour to excel at all times.
On his part, Kashimawo Laloko, a former NFF Technical Director, said that Siasia had the requisite knowledge to make the team succeed if allowed to continue as the team handler.
Laloko explained that the Eagles would do better under a local coach and domestic players.
“We should always believe in ourselves and also work hard. The ramshackle teams we assemble all the time will not help.
“We have a football team and all of a sudden somebody went and brought in a coach that destroyed the team we had.
“A well-coached team with cohesion and understanding from the domestic league will be better than a selection of players from abroad.
“These players coming from foreign clubs will not come on time and there will be no time to build cohesion in the team,’’ Laloko said.
NFF president, Amaju Pinnick, had on Wednesday said the football governing body would now shift attention to the Super Eagles’ 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.
