Amuneke,Oliseh fights for Super Eagles
Emmanuel Amuneke and Sunday Oliseh are among those vying to coach Super Eagles.
As if in response to the emotional general appeal by Nigerians for a home bred coach to take over from where Portuguese tactician, Jose Peseiro left, only one foreign coach has applied. Former Cameroon’s coach, Antonio Conceicao is among the applicants who beat NFF’s deadline for the submission of applications.
Others are Daniel Amokachi and Sylvanus Okpala(both assisted late Stephen Keshi when Nigeria won her last AFCON title in 2013), one-time Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh, disgraced former Super Eagles handler Salisu Yusuf, former USA U19 men’s coach Michael Nsien and Ndubuisi Egbo, Also in the running for the Super Eagles top job are Finidi George who was Peseiro’s assistant and Henry Makinwa.
With the clamour for an indigenous coach to handle the Super Eagles, it is very unlikely that any foreign applicant has a chance. But with the NFF in charge, nothing is impossible.
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As ‘poor’ as Peseiro was perceived to be, the Portuguese piloted the Super Eagles to their first AFCON final in 11 years. Unfortunately, it was in the final that Ivory Coast exposed Peseiro’s technical inadequacies, a fact that has surreptitiously fueled calls for an indigenous coach. The Super Eagles played so badly that they made Ivory Coast – a team they beat1-0 in the group stages, look like an ensemble from another planet.
The Ivorians had a 62-38 share of possession and had 18 efforts on goal compared with the Nigerians’ five. Eight of the Ivory Coast efforts were on target whereas Kessie’s own goal was the only effort on target from Nigeria. The Eagles played what former Nigeria international Sunday Oliseh, who incidentally is applying to replace Peseiro, described as ‘parking the bus’. Ironically, Peseiro set a threshold for whoever succeeds him.
With the compilation of the applications now over, we gathered that the general consensus among NFF bigwigs is that the next Super Eagles coach will be an indigenous manager. It is also said that the NFF are happy with the level of enthusiasm among Nigerian coaches who they consider as top notch. Our source added that “All the applicants are very good, with very good credentials as each of them can hold his own anywhere”.
He continued, “They are happy with the quality of applicants, but among all of them, Amunike is highly favoured by the majority of the NFF hierarchy,” our source informed. He said that the former Head Coach of Tanzania and U17 World Cup winning coach “is poles ahead of the rest in the rating of most members of the board.”
Emmanuel Amuneke belongs to the golden generation of Nigeria football. After a glowing career in Africa and Europe, the former Nigeria international has carved a niche for himself as a coach. In 2013 he assisted Manu Garba to win the FIFA U-17 World Cup in UAE. Two years later, Amuneke successfully defended the trophy for Nigeria as he led the likes of Victor Osimhen, Samuel Chukwueze, Kelechi Nwakali, among others to retain the trophy in Chile.
