By EDITOR
Former Super Eagles’ winger and assistant coach, Emmanuel Amuneke has added his view to the ongoing debate about the way forward for Nigeria’s national team, with a verdict that all players must come for serious business in the squad.
Sports247 reports that Amuneke, who previously handled Tanzania’s national team and is currently the head coach at Heartland of Owerri, reckoned that the Eagles lost 3-0 to Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday because the players were not committed to the task at hand.
Amuneke, who played for Barcelona of Spain at the height of his career and emerged as 1994 African Footballer of The Year, also faulted what he called ‘an outdated style’ that Nigeria is using in propelling the Super Eagles since 2002.
While taking a look at reforms for Nigerian football that were recently set in motion by the National Sports Commission (NSC), Amuneke reasoned further that the country needs a stronger structure built on vibrant ideas from various stakeholders of the game.
Amuneke also took a swipe at how players from the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) are not deemed good enough for shirts in the Super Eagles, as he believes they have stronger zeal for victory and recalled how many of his set were invited from the domestic scene.
The hero of Nigeria’s title winning squads at the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations and 1996 Olympic Games opined, “The only way we can move forward is to draw up a solid plan and involve everybody who can contribute one way or the other.
“We must stop demarcating between home-based and foreign-based players. To me, all those things are nothing. For me, all players are the same, wherever they come from.
“In our time, most of us came from the domestic league. What we now need to do is draw a solid programme that gives everyone a sense of belonging in the national team.
“Let’s give them years to grow up gradually, build up their confidence, and they can later step into the main team. You can not condemn somebody when you haven’t given him the possibility to prove himself.”
He concluded with an inference to what could be termed as a half-hearted approach to installing reforms into Nigerian football instead of looking into the entire fabric of the game with far-reaching efforts and decisions that would pointedly change the current narrative.
“We have to really search ourselves and ask, ‘Do we really want to move forward?’ Or, are we going to maintain the old method we have been using since 2002?
“If I’m not mistaken, we adopted the current style after the World Cup in Korea, but it hasn’t fetched us any success. So, we have to create an environment where there would be tough competition among the players.
“There should be someone taking real responsibility. Whoever is coming into the national team has to know he is there for serious business and that a lot of people depend on him.
“It’s not enough to say you play in Milan and deserve a privilege. You actually do have a privilege because of where you are playing, but you must come with a winning mentality,” Amuneke submitted.