Former Nigeria international Julius Aghahowa says there is no purposeful play in the current Super Eagles team.
Aghahowa stated this on ‘No Holds Barred’ on Brila FM anchored by his former Super Eagles teammate Ifeanyi Udeze.
The former Shahktar Donetsk striker urged the current players to emulate someone like Sunday Oliseh who always give passes which result to goals.
Also Read: Eberechi Eze: Will Crystal Palace Star Choose Super Eagles Over Three Lions?
“We don’t play with purpose anymore,” he said. “We don’t have players who will give long pass to strikers just like the way Sunday Oliseh use to do.
“All we do now is just keep possession in our half, making side ways passes with no purpose. So we need players who will give good passes to strikers to score goals.”
On why Paul Onuachu has not been able to replicate his club form in the Eagles, Aghahowa explained:”I think the pattern of the Super Eagles doesn’t favour him and the question we need to ask is do we want to score goals or just play football? If we want to score goals then we need to start feeding him with the ball.”
Aghahowa featured at four Africa Cup of Nations (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006) And was at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
At junior level he represented Nigeria at the 1999 U-20 World Cup and the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
And at club level, he played for Bendel Insurance, Esperance of Tunisia, Shakhtar Donetsk, Wigan Athletic and Kayserispor.
By James Agberebi
27 Comments
The voices we need to hear not Yakubu.
Mr aghahowa go and do what you know best dont tell super eagles what to do because during Ur time u did nothing,u was a flop at Wigan even at shakhter Donetsk u did nothing so go and smoke ur wiiwi Indian Herm,
But, did he say anything wrong?? Some of you guys here are very immature. Using the cover of internet to hide your cowadice.
What is this one saying? Dr Koyemi come and admit him my ward is full.
Do you know how many times Aghahowa rescued Nigeria. Ghana /Nigeria 2000. Japan Korea 2002
Ubah pls shut up and keep quite even the whole africa and the world knowns what Aghowa did for SE go and watch all the games he played for nigera and club pls les respect our ex international football is not easy.
Interviewer i thought this PAUL LEWANDOSKI ONUACHU issue is dead & burried?
Why do you always bring this matter again?
We hardly score goals with ONUACHU, but in his absence, we score loads of goals.
Then why are we crying as if the SE can’t score goal(s) or we’re finding it difficult to score goals?
At AFCON, he started the first game & couldn’t score until IGHALO was brought in for a rescue.
The last friendlies we played; against ALGERIA he can’t score.
IHEANACHO(not an out-and-out stricker) started against TUNISIA & prove his worth by netting a goal.
Why should a reasonable & a sane person keep crying, weeping, wailing, begging, grinding & gnash teeth over one negative, whereas we have so many positives?
We really need to grow up in this country…..
I think there’s something behind this….
Had it been SE is struggling in front of goals it would have been a different case and worth crying for ONUACHU.
But we’re scoring goals; what are they crying for?
:::::SHALOM:::::IT IS WELL::::::
They can not deceive all of all us at once.
I am expecting them to come out and defend this. We have players but we don’t have a team yet.
They will soon call this gentleman names now.
They are calling we patriotic Nigerians names just because we are telling NFF and Oga Rohr to do more.
What do they going to call Aghahowa now?
Let’s wait and see.
Whoever that telling Nigerians that Oga Rohr’s team is an average team and needed to improve the team, they will call the person anti-Rohr.
For sure they will manipulate everything and paint Aghahowa black and white by saying he is looking for a job.
Oga Rohr followers are the main problem of the Super Eagles. Instead of them to tell the coach to improve his tactics but they are celebrating FIFA ranking and boasting of having players without results we can be proud of.
We don’t play with purpose anymore,” he said. “We don’t have players who will give long pass to strikers just like the way Sunday Oliseh use to do.
All we do now is just keep possession in our half, making side ways passes with no purpose. So we need players who will give good passes to strikers to score goals.”
The role of any coach is to find good players and build a solid and fantastic team but what I’m seeing here is totally different.
Anyway, if Eagles fail to deliver this year, chai, i know you all one by one and you guys will hear the koko o. For now, fingers crossed. God bless Nigeria!!!
aghahowa scored great goals for us,in fact i respected him so much for his ruggedness nd extreme passion while playing for naija…….he was one player who did not care to be injured en route scoring……so so rugged…….a former policeman.But now am dumbfounded about this type of striker advocating for one striker(onuachu) who can not spring two passes successfully,guide the ball jealously nd even turn defenders IN OUT……am speechless o…….kanu nwakwo is also tall but he was a great team player,he didn’t score a goal throughout his afcon exploits yet we were never tired of him………onuachu should grow nd learn to become a team player…..simple
Who is this Ubah guy you dont deserve to be in this platform if you dont know who is Aghowa, hemis one of the best striker not only from nigeria but the entire africa.
@okpe animal like u suppose to be idiot
“We don’t play with purpose anymore,” he said. “We don’t have players who will give long pass to strikers just like the way Sunday Oliseh used to do. “All we do now is just keep possession in our half, making side ways passes with no purpose. So we need players who will give good passes to strikers to score goals.”
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The way these our ex-internationals talk sometimes can be shockingly shocking. Is Aghawonder, the backflip maestro, implying that the only way to play purposefully or the only brand of football that is purposeful is to float long balls (police football or kick and follow) from defence to the strikers…???. If all we do now truly is keeping possession in our half and making side ways passes with no purpose how then do our strikers manage to score goals….how do they manage to emerge as top scorers in qualifiers and the main tournament proper….how come we have won more games per games played under this dispensation than any other in the history of the SE…..how come we now even qualify for tournaments with games to spare….?? Mr Aghaowa’s statements above (if he truly made those remarks) defies logic and the realities on ground.
The highlights of our matches in this AFCON qualifiers (and before) are there on youtube for everyone to see….they should tell us if we have just been scoring by luck, by fluke or by pre-planned and often replicated buildups. All the goals we have scored have come from some sweet transitional buildup with balls to feet, from defense to midfield to attack, without we fans being under tension or having high BP and someone says its not purposeful…..LMAO
If we dont have oliseh who will feed the strikers anymore, do we not have an Iwobi who has more assists pre assists than Oliseh and Okocha combined…? Infact in our last 10 matches, he has either scored, assisted or given the key pass leading to an assist in almost every match. Do we not have an Ahmed Musa who has more goals and assists than even Finidi George or any other SE winger past and present (bar Segun Odegbami)…? Do we not have flying mercurial wingers like Kalu and Chukwueze who are unlocking defences at will with their trickery, or full backs like Zaidu and Ola Aina who never shy away from dashing forward to provide width upfront and lay some breathtaking ball ins for Osimhen to stab into the opponents nets….??? Or am I missing something…???
Sometimes I just thank God some of these ex-internationals aren’t anywhere near our SE. In their days when we were ‘purposeful’, playing long balls from defence to attack, we were always depending on other teams doing us favors to qualify for tournaments….today with our ‘side passes and ball possession in our half’, we qualify with games to spare and they say we are not purposeful…..LMAO. What an Irony…..LMAO.
Mumu let him say his opinion na wa for you my fellow Dr Drey.
Ode….let me also say my opinion too…abi who call you put for the matter…??LMAO. Mumu attention seeker seeking for attention and relevance….LMAO. As I nor reply your senseless tags all these while you sha wan make I converse with you….LMAO. Now you’ve had my attention, hope you don dey satisfied….LMAO. Dont go and mind your own business. See the useless name you even call yourself…..thats to show the kind of riffraff of a personality you are. Okponu.
You dey yarn nonsense na the Koko be that but your ITK no dey wan let you admit your shit. I am far better than all the other doctors here.
Hahahahaha…..e don pain am….Abirun….LMAO. Wetin concern you. Abi na your nonsense I yan…?? Abi na your ITK i do…? Inaki oshi. If e too pain you go commit suicide na. Nor be me say make your own brain empty. Go use your “far better than” collect money for bank na….LMAO
Here he goes again using my name to spread feces on CSN – doing his master’s bidding all for bread, selling his fatherland because of pocket money.
Dear forumites, whenever you see “Midwife Drey’s” post, please just pity him. Pity him because he has allowed hunger becloud his common sense. He lives to eat.
Fool…..you have returned from you refuse dump after I reminded you of your stupidity trying to impersonate someone else to gain relevance….LMAO. Okponu oloriburuku. You have failed once again. Let my support for Rohr and my opposition to riff raffs like you continue to be a source of heart ache to you. May it continue to pepper you and bring sorrow into your life every time you read them. Bloody Racist. Hungry men who want to return our SE to the days of riff raff players wearing our hallowed colours and he SE being unable to qualify for ordinary AFCON….LMAO. Senseless Skunk…! LMAO.
Have you noticed how misery has started following your life since you started impersonating me….?? You haven’t seen anything yet. You will still become the laughing stock of the whole world.
** When we were playing purposeful football, CAMEROUN use to be a night-mare for SE.
Now without purposeful football we beat them at will.
** When we use to play purposeful football, using engineer tape to measure long passes to our strikers; we use to wait for COMOROS IRELAND TO BEAT BRAZIL; LATVIA TO FORCE GERMANY TO A GOALESS DRAW; WHILE PRAYING FOR GABON TO BEAT IVORY COAST BY 2 GOALS TO NOTHING FOR NIGERIA TO QUALIFY.
Now we qualify for tournament with games to spare under the “no purposeful football”
** Under purposeful football where players can stand at ABUJA and send a LONG RANGE PASS to a striker at BAKKASSI PENISULA in CROSS RIVER STATE; We loose left right and centre to african teams.
But this clueless, without purpose football; the last time i checked we only lost to 4(four) african opponents in 5yrs (S.Africa, senegal, madagascar, algeria….. Note: senegal was just a practice game…. Madagascar was a dead rubber game).
With this few out of many positives i’ve been able to draft out; we need more and more of “FOOTBALL WITHOUT PURPOSE IN OUR SE”.
:::S H A L O M:::
some people are just hell bent on seeing this country retrogressed,for different reasons they hate to see progress……..the super eagles since 2016 are in an era of upward trajectory where qualifications to participate in major tournaments have become a thing of birthright as oppose to those times in history when super eagles were no more feared……playing against senior teams of ghana,cameroun,angola,benin republic,ethiopia,uganda etc.was like playing brazil,england,germany etc……Now we drew with brazil,even beat argentina 4-2,drew with ukraine even at home,beat iceland 2nil who drew argentina in the same world cup group,beat poland at home etc.nd,as usual,on the threshold of qualifying for another afcon yet some people are clamouring for CHANGE because this YOUNG SUPER EAGLES PROJECT did not win the last afcon nd failed to WIN the last world cup or get to the semi final…….my candid advice to you is to be patient so as not to be the patient……super eagles are obviously progressing,avoid high BP
Na wetin this mumu dey talk. On a good day can you beat Brazil. Abeg stop making noise about all this friendlies that don’t count. Let it be a major tournament and see. Why didn’t you beat Argentina at world cup when you needed to. Why didn’t you beat Croatia when you drawing brazil
@christopher,how dare you refer to someone you have never met as MUMU,it goes to show how unkempt,crude nd primitive you are……the same brazil that beat us 3nil right there at abuja stadium during the active days of jay jay okocha,nwakwo kanu nd others,we drew 1-1 recently nd nonentities like you see as no feat because it was not competive…….i think you should go get a life
I just felt every of our ex international will wants to rates their own time of super eagle far ahead of what we have now. We appreciate what many of them have done for us and we will always appreciate them. They need to understand that football is dynamic game.
Some methods use in those days might not be aplicable again.
They should remember that some of their statements can demoralize those new players out their.
I don’t think their counterpart from europe and america whom might have achived more for their countries use to go this way.
Aghaowa was a good player for the super eagles, but he only played in one world cup, and never won a nation’s cup, I don’t think he’s in the best position to criticize this team, without a medal to show for it.
What Agha meant was not playing a wonderful brand of football. Of course I know that because Rohr is an average coach. He can’t defeat big teams in tournaments. Take a look at the match against Algeria, Argentina and Croatia. A smarter coach wouldn’t have lost those games. It only took Algerian coach less than six months to turn around his team.
Rohr was not the one that made ighalo to miss that last minute goal against Argentina, he was not the one that made moses to stroll when he’s supposed to run to defend the goal Argentina scored, he was not the one that made ndidi to make an unreasonable tackle against Algeria, and if you think Super Eagles can beat the Croatian team in the last world cup, that was a dream too high.
Exactly what i have been saying.The players should be able to rise to the occasion when it matters.