New Telegraph

PAY OFF PASEIRO IF EGUAVOEN WINS AFCON, KPAKOR TELLS NFF

…says federation planned to mess caretaker coach up by naming Portuguese before tourney

Ex-international Moses Kpakor has said the Nigeria Football Federation may have to terminate its contract with the new substantive coach of the Super Eagles Jose Paseiro if the caretaker manager Austin Eguavoen wins the ongoing African Cup of Nations in Cameroon. He said the Nigerian coach has proved he’s got the capacity to tinker the team with the way the Eagles beat Egypt in their group opener in Garoua on Tuesday despite taking charge of the team with few days to the start of the competition.

He lambasted the NFF for announcing the appointment of a foreign coach before the start of the tournament, saying it was not only hasty but designed to mess the current handler up. He said: “It is so unfortunate that a prophet is not respected in his own town and that is the case with Eguavoen and other Nigerian coaches. They have proved that they have the capacity to manage any side; with their exposure as players and what they have done as coaches, it is a shame that we still rate some Europeans above them. But the performance of the Eagles against Egypt has shown once again, Eguavoen is very qualified for the job. “He served this country for many years and played at the very top for a long time and he has been in coaching for some time now with records to show.

He is the guy that brought up Mikel Obi as a U-17 coach among others. He is a democratic tactician who listens to even his players, coaches like that succeed. “I am sure NFF knows that the standard all over the world is that if a coach wins a tournament as big as AFCON, you can’t tell him to go except he wants to resign on his own. I don’t know if they have signed only MOU with the new coach but even if the contract has been sealed they may just have to pay him off. The decision to name the coach before AFCON is hasty; even if they have to sign a foreign coach, why can’t they wait until AFCON; we have seen some European coaches in this tournament who are decent, most of them will be willing to manage the Nigerian team instead of bringing somebody whose antecedents we really don’t know. Besides, Africa is becoming wiser now; countries are believing more in their own indigenous coaches as we have seen a large number of countries with local managers at AFCON unlike before, the paradigm is shifting, we have to join the train.”

Kpakor loves the way Eagles reacted to the sacking of the erstwhile manager Gernot Rohr, saying it appeared they needed the fresh air with the way they played against Egypt. “I don’t have problems with the way Rohr was sacked a few weeks to AFCON; there is never a wrong time to do the right thing, you can see it in the way the players played on Tuesday; they needed that new direction and it paid off. It happens often in football, you can remember when Bonfere Jo was sacked and Amodu Shuaibu was employed to reclaim Nigeria’s chances of getting a 2002 World Cup ticket; the players rose to the occasion because of the new man.

It is only in Africa that a coach will continue to build his team for five years, can he do that in Europe? The sacking of Rohr is good riddance…” he added. Kpakor who played in the final of the 1990 AFCON against Algeria said although the performance of the Eagles on Tuesday was good, there is a need for them to improve in the midfield.

“The defence was good and the attack too didn’t do badly but I want the team to improve in the midfield. The midfielders did well by moving the ball forward to the strikers but they didn’t do enough follow up with the attackers when the ball was lost; there were about three chances created by the strikers and if there were follow-ups, it could have helped the team before the opponents cleared the chances away,” he said. He said he was not one of those Nigerians who doubted the Eagles’ chances at AFCON before the start of the tournament, saying the trend has shown that the Eagles may clinch the title in Cameroon.

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