Ifeanyi Eduzor
Former Super Eagles captain, Augustine Eguavoen has charged the national team handler, Gernot Rohr to emulate Dutch man, Clemens Westerhof and make Nigeria his home.
Eguavoen insisted that the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) must compel the Franco-German tactician to do this if they want to see him get results.
In an exclusive interview with The Nigerian Xpress Sports, Eguavoen said the decision of Rohr not to live permanently in the country is affecting the performance of the various national teams because he does not have time to watch most of the country’s league matches where he could select players from the domestic league.
“I’m surprised like any other concerned Nigerian that Super Eagles handler, Gernot Rohr, has refused to live in Nigeria and cannot even stay a week in the country which is absurd,” began the former U-20 and U-23 handler.
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“It’s the duty of the NFF, who are his employers, to tell him what they want because he cannot be operating from Europe when he is supposed to be visiting our domestic league matches to select players and not rely solely on his assistants, as he is presently doing,” the former Bendel Insurance and Sharks of Port Harcourt gaffer noted.
Eguavoen was also of the opinion that Rohr must emulate Clemens Westerhof, who made Nigeria his home and was always at league matches from where he picked quality players that enabled him achieve success when he was in charge.
“My advice to Rohr, is that he should emulate Westerhof and apply his strategy one of which was attending almost all the league matches. That gave him ample opportunity to discover some talented players that gave us the Nations Cup for the second time and qualified Nigeria for her first World Cup at Tunisia 94 and USA 94, respectively.”
Cerezo, as Eguavoen is fondly called by admirers, also appealed to the NFF to ensure that ex- internationals have more roles to play in the various national team’s. He declared that the country is under utilising her best brains.
“You can see the role a person like Emmanuel Amuneke is playing at the world level. FIFA is making good use of him as a member of their study group. The country is blessed with a whole lot of ex-internationals, who have played the game at the highest level, but unfortunately the NFF is under utiliseing us. We all need to work together to grow Nigerian football. The NFF needs to tap more from us,” Eguavoen said.
He was, however, quick to add that Rohr, given his performances since taking over the Eagles, deserves contract renewal when his contract expires next year.
“Rohr has not done badly since he came on board. He has started the race to Cameroon 2021 with the team…He should be allowed to continue. If the NFF decides not to renew his contract, that could be counter-productive.”
