AFCON 2023: We need results from Pisero, Nigerians should be patient with Uzoho, says John Obuh

The Super Eagles dominance at the continental and international levels has withered due to the lack of a consistent football blueprint or master plan.

A team that holds the record for the highest FIFA ranking position ever achieved by an African football team.

After their exploit in 1994, the Nigerian national football team was ranked 5th in the FIFA rankings. That was the year the Super Eagles announced their presence in the global football world.

The year started with Nigeria winning the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations, which was the second time they won the tournament.

They went a step further by qualifying for the World Cup in 1994, after years of struggling to get there.

Clemens Westerhof was in charge of them. Nigeria topped their group, which included Argentina, Bulgaria, and Greece. Nigeria defeated Bulgaria 3–0, lost to Argentina 1–2, and reached the second round after a 2–0 victory over Greece.

The Nigerian football culture, where streets will be deserted when any of the national teams are in action, is alien to the new generation. Now, millions of football fans in Nigeria are caught up in the glitz and glam of European football leagues.

With the African Nations Cup just a few weeks away from kick-off, Nigerian football enthusiasts are sceptical about the possibility of the Super Eagles lifting the trophy, despite having the most lethal attacking force in Africa.

In an exclusive interview with Persecond News, Samuel Akpan said that Coach John Sam Obuh, a former U17 coach, was in charge of Nigeria’s under-17 national team at the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup, where his team picked up the runner-up medal.

Obuh, who is also the current chairman of the Abia Warriors of Abia State, called on Jose Pisero to prove doubters wrong with the Nation’s Cup by selecting players on merit so we can have a good outing at the continental showpiece in Cameroon.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

PSN: The Super Eagles have conceded from set pieces in five of their last six games, including the last two games against Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Do you think we should change Uzoho, or do we have a defensive crisis?

Obuh: We don’t have more options than him; sometimes a very good goalkeeper depends on the strength of his defence. Most of the time, you might not get the best out of him because of the kind of defence he has. But he has to wake up; in terms of experience, he is the most experienced right now; that’s the same mistake we made with Vincent Enyeama, so we have to be patient with him in situations like this.”

PSN: Nigerians are calling for the sack of Pisero. Is this the right time for the Portuguese to be fired? Recall that the aftermath of the impromptu sacking of Gernot Rohr took a toll on our Qatar 2022 aspiration.

Obuh: What is the essence of letting him go? We cannot continue employing and sacking; we have to be patient with some of these coaches and see if we can get the best out of them. Concerning the performance of the Super Eagles, don’t look at him alone; he has his fault, and the players also have theirs. The players have to wake up; if the players wake up and the coach wakes up, we are good to go.

PSN: What are your expectations from Jose Pisero’s Super Eagles going into AFCON 2023?

Obuh: Results are what we want to see because that’s what is expected of him; he is already being seen as a failure; he needs to prove people wrong; he can still spring up with surprises. He needs to select his team so we can compete at the championship. Since winning the competition back-to-back in 2013 and 2015, the golden eaglets glory days have become dusky.

In the last three tournaments, the Golden Eaglets have failed to qualify for two of the championships, 2017 and 2023, participating only in Brazil 2019, where they eventually crashed out in R16.

On the continent, the last time the Golden Eaglets won the Africa-U17 Cup of Nations was in 2007. On their last outing in Algeria in 2023, they crashed out in the quarterfinals for the first time in the country’s history.

Since 2015, there has been a steady decline in the progression of players from the various cadet teams to the national team.

PSN: What is wrong with the U17?

Obuh: The quality of the coach matters; you don’t have to bring in favouritism; we have to bring in a mature coach who has experience in the league. You have to make provisions for training tours and expose the team to top-notch international and local games. I benefited from this because the NFF made arrangements for travelling training tours and early resumption to camp; hence, we did a good job. So if we can go back to the basics, we can do better.

We declined because we went to sleep. We believed that as long as we had captured that age group for ourselves, we didn’t believe that other people would be better and get better than us. We have to keep to the terms of being at the top. By making sure that we start early preparation, appoint the coaches on time, and start the MRI scan early, this will afford the coach the luxury of time to implement his tactics and programme for the team.

The reason there is a stunted progression of players from the U17 to the U23 and finally to the Super Eagles is because some of my colleagues look for what they can get in the short term instead of the long-term process. When I was the coach, I made sure I had more than five players from my cadet team on the Super Eagles. This was due to my commitment to the development of every player I coach. So it depends on the programme of the coach and his philosophy when he takes the job.