Former Nigerian midfielder, Emmanuel Amuneke believes Finidi George has made the right decision to join Enyimba as their coach.
The 1994 Africa Cup of Nations winner signed a two-year contract with the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) club and was unveiled on Wednesday.
Reacting to Finidi’s appointment, Amuneke told Completesports.com that his wealth of experience will help him surmount the task at hand.
He however, called on the management of Enyimba to give him time in a bid for (Finidi) to implement his style of play with the team.
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“I am so excited to hear that Finidi George has been appointed by Enyimba as their new manager. It is a good news because he will be coaching in an environment where everybody can see and appreciate his good work.
“I really feel he has made the right decision to begin his managerial journey in Nigeria. I will do everything to support my him so that he can excel o his new job.”
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FINIDI GEORGE’S FIRST CAP AND GOAL FOR NIGERIA!
I’ve seen it written and reinforced many times that Finidi Georges first cap (and goal) for Nigeria was during the 7-1 routing of Burkina Faso on July 27, 1991 (last qualifying game for Senegal’92). I believe this is an error that NFA or whoever is in charge of the records need to correct firmly.
Incidentally, Finidi’s first cap (and goal) was still against Burkina Faso, but at an earlier date (exactly one month earlier) on June 27, 1991 during the ECOWAS Tournament hosted in Lagos. The tournament had 5 participating countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Gambia and Burkina Faso. Nigeria featured mainly a home based team but led by Coach Westerhof. In the first game of that tournament, Nigeria defeated Burkina Faso 3-0 with Finidi scoring one of the goals. The other goals were scored by Monday Agbontaen and Francis Obinwe. Finidi went ahead to play 3 other games in the tournament, a 2-0 defeat of Gambia, 2 -0 defeat of Mali and a 0-0 draw with Ghana.
The tournament itself had a few controversies and organisational hiccups including postponement of the last two games of the preliminary rounds for two days due to heavy rains and flooding in Lagos leading to a change of format midway into the tournament. The original format was supposed to have a round robin involving all the participating teams, after which the top two teams will play the final, and 3rd and 4th placed teams in the group will slug it out for the bronze medal. But due to the two lost days, organisers decided to end the tournament at the round robin stage with the first three placed teams receiving the gold, silver and bronze medals in that order.
I watch in dismay as highly placed people in Nigeria football circles including media outlets keep referring to the 7-1 game against Burkina Faso on July 27, 1991 as Finidi’s first game for Nigeria, and not even the NFA has come out to put the record straight. Except those games were not considered as “officially games” or even friendlies, then then NFA has a responsibility to correct this error about Finidi’s records and also take the issue of record keeping more seriously.
Come home and look for a club to coach like finidi has just done. stop staying in one corner eyeing another person’s job (food is ready job). We want to see what u can do with our domestic senior players. Youth football is different from senior football likewise nigerian football in general. Nigerians want to assess u properly before u are even considered for the super eagles job. Come home and help develop our league. Stop sitting on the sidelines. Same applies to the african guardiola (that is if pride go allow am focus).
Finidi has my respect, not people like Odegbami who constantly throws shade from the side lines but has nothing to offer.
All the ex- internationals, until you do what Finidi has just done, nobody wants to hear you criticize any coach or Nigerian football in general. You guys are supposed to take over Nigerian football in all aspects not just coaching, management too. You should be leading and in charge of NFF, LMC and all the teams in Nigeria.
I can’t but call for grande applause for the 3 contributors above… can’t contribute anything better than they’ve done already…
Thanks guys