Nigerians must have learnt useful lessons in football from their country’s Egypt 2009 misadventure. The team that had set out in high spirit and pronounced by its handlers as well-prepared for the global championship, was unmasked as a pretender by three weaker but tactically-superior opposition! Ironically, the biggest beneficiary of these lessons must be Samson Siasia who had set out to confirm that his recent unprecedented world ranking by FIFA as one of the best coaches on earth is deserved. After last Wednesday night, Samson Siasia must be thinking differently, his understanding of, and respect for, the game of football elevated to new heights. Through four matches Samson must have seen his team of athletes put up a good demonstration of how to run and cover every inch of grass, fight for every ball, keep possession for as long as possible and, at the same time, squander goal-scoring opportunities and concede cheap goals! The four matches left everyone with the impression that although the team played ‘well’ it was embarrassingly deficient in the goal scoring department and naïve in defence.

As the team returns to Nigeria to face the inevitable avalanche of critical appraisal of its performances one thing is obvious – all told, all is not well with the game of football in Nigeria! This was clearly written all over chief coach Samson Siasia who, as the final whistle was blown to end the match against Germany and terminate Nigeria’s campaign in the championship, stared unseeingly into space in total incomprehension at what had just hit him. How would he explain how his team, loaded to the hilt with strong, fast, skilful and athletic players, at the periphery of a major, turning-point victory, so dramatically and tactlessly surrender it all and crash out? How would he explain how his team committed the same kind of errors that earned the senior national team, the Super Eagles, unprecedented condemnation and opprobrium - a bundle of elementary blunders committed at critical periods in a match: losing concentration immediately after scoring an important goal; not knowing how to play for time through the dying moments of a match when the team is winning; not knowing how a team plays with a one-man advantage or deficit; and generally not knowing how a team maintains concentration and organisational discipline till the final whistle!

Football is not won by wishful thinking or simple verbal instructions given by a coach to his players before a game but by a careful orchestration of elaborate, well articulated, practised and rehearsed movements and strategies that would provide the essential edge that separates the winners from the losers! Football is won by the careful application of both the physical and the psychological, not just building a team of runners and fighters with the skills and the basic technical abilities to execute movements and kicks but also inculcating the winning attitude - unflinching, unrelenting, focussed and clinical!

Yes, there is something fundamentally wrong with Nigerian football. And it is much more than the quality of players being churned out by the system. The standard of national teams’ performances has plummeted. Even the female game that Nigeria once completely dominated in Africa has slipped from the country’s grip. The Super Eagles no longer command the kind of global respect they once did. Qualifying for the World Cup from a group of 4 teams has now become an uphill task. In the age-group competitions, the failure in Egypt paints a grim picture of the quality of the next generation of senior players. Even at the foundational level (under-17), with recent developments and introduction of technology in determining eligibility of the players, plus the big question marks that hang over the integrity of our past achievements, very few people expect much from the Nigerian team that appears to be in some disarray as the championship is about to begin.

The under-20 team in Egypt worked hard. They had to contend with some questionable and borderline officiating decisions that could have changed a few things except the final results. Nothing could have changed those. The team just did not have the fire power upfront to change anything. The team would build up from defence through the midfield to the attack, only for the whole build up to dissipate into nothingness!

Samson Siasia presented a team of ordinary but hardworking players who were willing to work but did not know how to win. They simply were outsmarted by the three teams they lost to. The Flying Eagles were full of running and athleticism, but lacked tactical depth and organisational discipline! In the three months that the team had to be put together enough was obviously not done contrary to the assurance given every Nigerian on the eve of the championship that it was ready to take on the rest of the world. In 2005 and 2006 Samson Siasia was lucky to have had some exceptionally gifted players in his squads that could take responsibility and change the course of a match. In 2009 he was not that lucky as there wasn’t any such player.

I hope with this defeat Samson would have learnt his lesson to accord the coaching job the respect it deserves. After all, this is a game that humbles even the game’s best exponents once they go into the coaching sector!

In conclusion the chicken has come home to roost! Nigeria is finally paying the price and reaping the dividends of her poor investment in all-round grassroots sports development - a sustaining well-established sports policy; a complete integration of football into the curriculum of secondary schools, and reward for those that excel; the integrity of its competitors and competitions; a revamp of the institutions for the training of the manpower to drive development; and the full restoration of merit and competence as the only basis for appointments and selections into teams and the association.