Ifeanyi Eduzor
Former assistant coach of the Super Eagles, Joe Erico has urged Super Eagles handlers to comb all the match venues in the country to enable them pick quality players that will help in the rebuilding process of the national team.
According to the coach who is credited with discovering Daniel Akpeyi, they should do the needful and reduce their 100 percent reliance on foreign based players as that will not help the development of the country’s football.
“I remember my days in the national team with late Shuaibu Amodu and Stephen Keshi. That time we had to travel by road to Enugu, Kano, Kaduna, Yenegoa, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Sokoto, Ilorin, Ogbomosho, Ibadan and many other places and that was how we discovered players that qualified Nigeria for the 2002 World Cup.
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“It’s unfortunate that Gernot Rohr and his assistants are not thinking towards that direction, rather they are comfortable inviting only foreign based players, some of whom play in countries whose leagues are not comparable with that of Nigeria.
“At times I begin to think that they are afraid of being kidnapped which never happened during our days because there was no incidence of kidnaping in those days but this cannot be correct because even the most wicked person watches football and as such the coaches are safe anywhere in the country,” stated Erico popularly known as Jogo Bonito.
The one time NEPA of Lagos gaffer expressed optimism that if the coaching crew can do the needful and pay more attention to the county’s domestic league the goalkeeping problem of the national team will be a thing of the past.
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“I want to tell you that I am worried that at this time, we’re still struggling to have a permanent goalkeeper for the Super Eagles. Today, it is Ikechukwu Ezinwa, tomorrow Francis Uzoho another time Daniel Akpaeyi or Afelokhai Theophilus and most recently, Maduka Okoye. All these inconsistency are bringing confusion to the goalkeeping department. The truth is that we’ve good goal keepers in the domestic league who need to be discovered and once this is done, the goal keeping problem of the senior national team would be solved,” he stated.
On the forthcoming international friendly between Nigeria and Brazil, he described it as a welcome development, as it will give more challenge to the Super Eagles even as he charged them to put in their best in Singapore.
“The Brazilian friendly is good for our team because it will afford Nigerians the opportunity of having a proper assessment of the players. But my advise is that they should be serious and avoid the type of mistakes they made against Ukraine in their last friendly game. Brazil is the number one football playing nation in the world with quality players and I expect to see a good game on October 13,” he concluded.
