‘Super Eagles Players Have Losing Mentality’ —Udeze

NFF are the same from the beginning of time during the NFA tenure they owe players, but the players of old will not sit and let countries dismantle us and inflict pain on we the fans. Our players of old will put a good fight and defend our colours, no wonder they won CAF awards those days unlike today that we are fast becoming strangers to CAF award and watch Other African countries take the awards in turn. Our female team is now heading to that direction with the emergence of Morocco and RSA teams or less I forget Zambia women team that defeated them in the fourth place. Nigeria football is no more a force and a lot must happen else it will all be a continuous blame game and nobody will be held accountable for the continuous embarrassment. From sharing coaches salary to owing players and players non commitment to national assignment or coaches not during their home work must be addressed.

NIGERIAN Officials and Ex Footballers actually have the biggest Loser Mentality because of Greed and Personal Interest. Infact Nigerian Officials have a Greedy and Selfish Mentality and God Will Judge and deal with them all. All in due time

But the two coaches that have come after him has answer to second half? When we say some of you talk without sense you will say one is abusing you. Your hatred, sentiment and biase attitude brought the country football to where it is presently.

Tristan, as opulent as your write-up in the Netherlands v Senegal article might appear on face value, it is riddled with holes and semantical ambiguities when you embark on a deepdive on what you wrote.

Quoting you verbatim, you said: “European football is not about players but about scientifically measured tactics.”

To put it bluntly, that statement is inaccurate at best and outright false at worst. World football is definitely about the players. It is the players who interprete the principles of any coach, be it scientific, agricultural, rudimentary or basic.

Footballers matter. They have varying degrees of intelligence, work ethics, potential movements, attributes and applications. You can have all the modern, analytical and avant garde management principles and techniques, without the supremely talented players to interprete your principles, the coach will fail.

Before the advent of this data analytics (that appears to have blown you away), are you trying to tell me that games were not won and lost by experimenting with playing styles and tactics? Are you saying that your so called backroom organisation is a modern construct? If so, you do huge disservice to the great teams and great coaches of old.

Rather than spend much time with these overblown YouTube footbal analytics presentations, perhaps you might want to watch ageless documentaries of great Brazilian, Holland, Cameroon, Romanian, Hungarian and German teams of years gone by to actually marvel at backroom organisation that is grounded in reality.

Football has evolved, no doubt. But that evolution hasn’t in any way stripped the modern game of the key elements to success which are: structure, discipline, organisation, focus, decision making, chemistry, communication, determination, hard work and (yes) intelligence.

When you say, and I quote, that the difference between players (like Moses Simon and Phil Foden or Osimhen and Harry Kane) is negligible at best and irrelevant at worst, then you postulate a theory that is wholly untenable and one that will collapse easily at the slightest contact with scrutiny.

Players do matter, my brother. Some are more gifted, endowed and intelligent than others. Some are more versatile and others are more mouldable and pliable than others. The output you can expect from different players depends on their skills, experience, aptitude, intelligence and application. Some are game-changers and others are not.

We do not – as you say – regurgitate 4-4-2 formation. Gernot Rohr used 4-2-3-1, 4-4-3 and 3-5-2 while Eguavoen, in just 3 months, used 4-4-2, 4-2-4, 4-1-4-1 and 3-3-4 from the start or in-game.

The problem as I see it is not about modern methods of management (incorporating backroom organisation, scientific approach, data analytics). Rather it is about doing the basics right and approaching each game with the highest level of professionalism and concentration for the entire duration of the match.

Look at a case in question: Nigeria’s under 17 women’s bronze medallists. It was clear to all that their tactical and technical approach lacked the depth and content of modern day football. This was evident in their rudimentary movements, their unimaginative passing routines, their disjointed rhythm, their flawed first touches and predictable (at times laughable) all round play.

Yet, organisation, focus, concentration, grit, determination, discipline, having a clear vision, staying the course and maintaining the highest level of concentration meant they were just 1 penalty away from claiming either Gold or at worst Silver in the tournament.

In senior level, Eguavoen’s tactics and formation weren’t the problem. The Absence of data analytics, backroom organisation or an unscientific approach were not his problem.

Against Tunisia – even with his basic retrofitted 4-4-2 approach – his defensive structure cracked and lost concentration while Iwobi lost his discipline. Against Ghana in Abuja, loss of concentration again led to the sequence of events leading to the fatal away goal while questionable organisation, poor shape, poor decision making on the part of certain players and overall defective application let the team down.

But yes, Eguavoen lacked and still lacked the experience needed to harness the potentials inherent in his own approach whilst adequately identifying underlying weaknesses in his approach. Hence his inability to develop mitigations for the risks and issues that will arise in his philosophy.

Go back and watch Brentford vs Manchester City. You will see how Coach Thomas Frank exploited the inescapable shortcomings in Guardiola’s approach to punish Manchester City.

Liverpool are currently not doing so well. Part of their problem is that other coaches have worked out Coach Jurgen Klopp’s high pressing to then use this to punish Liverpool (this is just 1 part of many problems).

My point: Every coach’s philosophy has holes that can be exploited. Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger were holding the reins in the English Premer League before Jose Mourinho came to re-write the rules by showing that there were weaknesses in Man U and Arsenal’s philosophy that other coaches had failed to spot.

Eguavoen, like great coaches, has deficiencies in their approach. Cerezo just lacks the insight, foresigh, speed of thought, time, expertise and experience to make timely adjustments.

In conclusion, modern methods of football management is good, discernable, easily identifiable and supremely efficient. But a highly focused, well drilled, well disciplined, highly organised and well motivated team will still be, at worst, very difficult to break down.

Go back and watch Nigeria vs France at the 2014 World Cup. Keshi’s boys weren’t scientific or contemporary. They were organised and focus only for 80 minutes before it fell apart.

Contrary to what you said, players matter, quality players matter. But with inexperienced coaches like Eguavoen and self harming football infrastructure and a poisoning climate created by the NFF, no team will thrive.

It is not about scientific football. It is about going back to the basics and doing the simple things right, to start with.

Tony, if you look at the football played in the 1990s and you benchmark it with the one played in the 1970s, the glaring evolution in the game in the 20 year period will not excape you.

Contrary to what wonderful guys like Tristan will like us believe : it is not because of any scientific mumble jumble rather it is because of the availability of ‘data’.

How many games have been played between the 2002 Japan Korea World Cup and this 2022 World Cup? A lot of games, hence a lot of data.

As a results, savvy managers are able to go back in time to see what worked, what didn’t work and what can be improved upon.

The outcome of this exercise is then the evolution we see in the modern game which then gives the sexy impression that the game is more ‘scientific’.

Pele and his coaches in the 60s and 70s didn’t have access to the same quantity and quality of data (in games played) available t Maradona and his coaches in the 1980s. Maradona and his managers do not have access to data available to Messi and his coaches today due to the share volume of data available.

In 50 years from now, the game will again evolve, it is just a natural order of things.

However, and most importantly, evolution will never ever take the place of old fashioned variables like focus, concentration, PREPARATION, drive, fitness, determination, organisation and discipline.

A manager can take a template from the 60s, adapt it, PRIME HIS TEAM, and adopt the highest level of professionalism and still grind out results here and there.

Yes, With modern technology, exposure and explosion in football technical and technical knowledge (which again is a product of data accumulated from very many games played over the years and decades), there is more for managers to work with these days.

But the skeleton that will house all these resources, the very foundation of a successful team still predicates on doing the basics right.

– You have Osimhen going for a high risk manoeuvre against Ghana.

– You see Moses Simon thinking he has become Messi all of a sudden.

– You see the Super Falcons committing needless fouls in full knowledge of the utilisation of VAR.

– You see Iwobi getting himself needlessly sent off.

– You have goalkeepers fumbling saveable long range shots.

The list is endless. Even in the days of non-scientific football techniques, I watched teams in the 1970s, 80s and 90s pay dearly for such levels of incompetence, lack of discipline and poor professionalism.

If nothing else, the art and science of football have admittedly evolved, but the essential themes (professionalism, discipline etc) that form the foundation of any successful team have remained constant overtime and will in all probability continue to do so into the future.

Please where is that noise maker and parrot. Come out and tell us how your so called science experiment didn’t work for Argentina. Abi did they eat fufu or eba like ur asslickers were talking about. Go thrash that nonsense, that soccer has now evolved with science. Absolute garbage. There is what we call hunger and determination and thats what soccer is more about. Saudi Arabia didn’t parade one foreign based player but yet defeated one of the projected winners of the World cup. Abeg go back to your experiment room and focus on something meaningful and stop coming here to spill garbage.

Please let’s not quarrel each other biko . Let’s face NFF for their brilliant arrangements. NFF think they are wise, even in football NFF are playing politics without minding what we the fans of the super eagles will say. They’re after looting money and then play politics over it. Kudos to NFF. I’m still waiting for the new elected NFF president Ibrahim Gusau who just enter the office, let’s how his regim will be like. Super eagles don die because of over Sabi NFF and their cohort.

Super Eagles do not lose mentality but lost compass in large ocean, that means they haven’t pattern of play, they haven’t excellent tactic and stratgy to deal with high quality teams; NFF must change their bad and corpput conduct which manage SE football.

I don’t agree wth you respect in reciprocal i think my though is good Super Eagkes lack pattern of play especiall agressive defensive style look at ex SE play strong , agressive defensive play by Adepoju and Oliseh, SE do not play prsesing with sliding football in defensive midfield and back; look at Morocco how they play combative football they are so strong combatants, I would like SE play like this style.If SE play just like style I think they will defeat any big team in Africa and the World.