New Telegraph

I’d rather develop players for future than focus on winning trophies –Ladan Bosso

Flying Eagles coach, Ladan Bosso, has stated categorically in an interview with CHARLES OGUNDIYA that he never signed for Adamawa United. Excerpts…

What really happened at the WAFU B U-20 Championships?

In the first place, I am taking all the blame for the team’s woeful performance at the competition. I exonerated the Federal Government and the Nigeria Football Federation, that was what I said immediately I returned from the competition.

The appointment of the coaches for the team was announced just two months into the competition, hoping that the FG will lift the ban on contact sports immediately, so that we could switch into action. The point is the FG decided not to lift the ban on contact sports because there was fear of the outbreak and escalation of the COVID- 19 pandemic, so we can’t blame them.

On the part of the NFF, they did their best by announcing the coaches, on the part of the FG, we can’t blame them because they are concerned about the safety of the citizens of the country, so who are we going to put the blame on? I will say everything boils down to late preparation, so I have to take the blame because it was a national call, a call to service by my country and I have to accept the blames because if I didn’t accept the job, another person would have.

There was rumour of the team facing some difficulties starting from the hotels and the likes, can you talk about that too?

Let me start from here, even if you are going to play an away game in the Nigerian league, you have to be at the venue at least 24 hours before the game, but we were not able to achieve that when we traveled for the competition in Benin Republic. First, the team was supposed to leave on Friday with the game scheduled for Sunday.

We were at the airport only for us to discover that the airline staff were on strike, you cannot put that blame on the NFF because they already made arrangement for the team to travel on Friday, rest on Saturday and play the game on Sunday, but we didn’t move on that day and the federation had to make another arrangement for us on Saturday to travel, that’s the eve of the game. We left Nigeria late afternoon and arrived Benin Republic via Lome in Togo around 6.30pm in the evening of Saturday.

We couldn’t leave the airport until around 8.30pm in the night because we were to do COVID-19 test at the airport, so there was no room for us to check the pitch, rest. The doctor that traveled with the team told me that the players would not do well because of jetlag, and that truly affected the performance of the boys in the first game against Cote D’Ivoire because we would have beaten them well in that game with normal preparation, but because we went through all what I mentioned, there was nothing we could do and no way we are going to put the blame on the NFF or the FG. We are also talking about substandard hotel by the organisers, that’s not the fault of the NFF or the FG, even can’t blame the organisers too. In hierarchy, we have FIFA, CAF before WAFU, they are the least and we should not be expecting the standard from FIFA or CAF. I have gone for games where we had to sleep in the garage, so that shouldn’t be an excuse for us.

However, the issue of jet lag, late preparation and what we went through during the journey, affected our first match w h i c h was what led to the result of the second game. If we had won the first game, we wouldn’t have played the second ,match under pressure. So I will say the effect of the first game affected us as the team was under pressure against Ghana in the second game because it was a must win game for us. We did everything humanly possible, did our best to get the win, but our best was not good enough against Ghana.

So is it a case of losing another generation of players with the failure of the team?

No matter the situation on the ground, I am very proud of those boys. I am happy I was part of the people that handled those boys in such a difficult situation, and I can tell you, that generation will not go into extinction.

Among those boys that traveled with me for the tournament, I can tell you that five of those boys will sign for clubs in Europe, at the moment, three already signed, that team was devoid of any external influence, there was no interference from anybody, those boys made the team on merit. We played only two matches, those that started the first game were different from those that started the second game against Ghana. If not for the results, the second game was better than the first match in every aspect.

Would you say the decision to scrap the match bonus and allowances for age grade team affected the boys?

I don’t know how true that is, but before we left, we had a meeting with the management, the NFF had a meeting with us where I represented all the national team coaches, and there and then they told us about the bonuses, not only the bonuses, there is what we call qualification bonuses, so I don’t know where that issue was coming from.

Are you saying the NFF already returned match bonuses?

Not just the match bonuses, but the qualification bonuses as well. I took up the appointment because I want to add my quota to the development of the team. I am sure of the fact that both U-17 and U-20 now have their match bonuses returned and I don’t know where such rumour is coming from.

With what has happened, what will you say is the future for the boys that you took to Benin Republic?

I can tell you that these boys are the future of the Super Eagles Eagles, those that signed European contracts, after two years, they will start playing for the Super Eagles. It’s all about them getting clubs in Europe and also playing regularly, you will see them playing for the Eagles. Personally, if you call me to win the World Cup, I won’t take such an offer, but if you call me to develop, i am a developer, i have the same philosophy as former Arsenal coach, Arsene Wenger. I love to develop players for the future. Imagine after the game against Cote d’Ivoire, the coach came to me and said the Nigerian team was better but they were only opportune to take their chance and get the same result as the Ghana coach who said we were just unlucky, for my opponents to be praising me, I was satisfied.

The last time you handled the U-20 team, so many players from that team made it to so I am already fulfilled.

Back to the league, you took a job before traveling for the WAFU B Cup, the Technical Adviser of Adamawa United, despite the crisis in that club, why?

The point is I am not with Adamawa United. Immediately I returned from the championship, some people from Adamawa called to ask when am I reporting. I told them I cannot report because all what I requested, they are yet to report back to me officially on those things, so I cannot report. We had a negotiation and I gave them my conditions and they are yet to get back to me as per those conditions, so how can I report? I don’t even know the players.

As the chairman of the coaches association, we have a foreigner as the Super Eagles coach, same as the Super Falcons, what can you say about the capability of a Nigerian coach?

We are alway economical with the truth in this country, history is there to give a reference point. Between 1974 and date, we’ve had about 34 coaches in the Super Eagles and about 23 are foreign managers, they have come from different regions around the world. Today you have someone from Brazil, tomorrow it will be the turn of someone from Germany, next someone from Holland, with t h i s , how do Super Eagles… That is the only team that produced five players from U-20 straight to the Super Eagles. Brown Ideye, Efe Ambrose, Ikechukwu Ezenwa, Akabueze and Echiejile. From the team I took to Benin Republic, I have the likes of Wisdom Ubani, Christopher Uwaze, Solomon and some others that will play for the Super Eagles in the nearest future. It would be recalled that Kwara United started the season brightly, they actually won their first game against Plateau United away from home, I can tell you that three of the players I took to Benin were part of Kwara United team, all of them played against Plateau United while two were part of the home team with one of them playing in that game. So five of them played against each other in that game, we have a playing pattern? It’s not possible. As we are talking, I want to praise the NFF and the LMC for helping our coaches with the La Liga training and Arsenal training. Now we are subjecting our coaches to the La Liga philosophy, that’s Spanish football. Now the coaches will take that experience to the clubs and later submit those players to a coach from Germany who has another philosophy from what the players are used to, where is the cohesion? Where is the synergy? I will say we are having a tactical concussion, we need to manage things like this so that we can have the same formation from the club level to the national team. We need to have the same training from the grassroots up to the national team.

What is your take on the coach inviting only foreign-based players?

In recent times, we have not done well even in the Champions League organised by CAF because we always go into the competition even without playing the league, so where is the match fitness? If there was no match fitness to go far on the continent, where will the Super Eagles coach get the players to invite for the national team? It’s not possible, we need to accept that as the bitter truth. You can’t blame the coach for not inviting the players, we just have to find a way forward.

What’s the way forward to arrest all these negative situations?

For me we have to wait for this global pandemic to end because for now, the major setback for everyone is the health situation across the world, we can’t blame God, we just need to encourage ourselves, although we need to be committed, disciplined and work hard to achieve results. We need to do the right thing and see how we can manage ourselves and stop the blame game.

What’s the next line of action for Coach Ladan Bosso?

At the moment I am in Abuja to submit my technical report and we are trying to find a solution to all the problems I already itemised in the report.

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