By Ben Ogbemudia
Coach Adegboye Onigbinde on two occasions had handled the Nigeria senior team, the super eagles. The ageless coach spoke briefly with Ben Ogbemudia via phone on the sacked Gernot Rohr, while Austin Eguavoen and others need the administrative support to succeed.
Excerpts…….
Sir, the new development in the Nigeria football of the Super Eagles. Some have been sacked and some have been appointed as interns. Do you think this is the right thing to do?
We have people directly in charge and they must have a reason for taking this decision but to make such a decision for over 5years now, is rather unfortunate.
Well, the decision has been made and one prays that they will face their job squarely.
But one thing Nigerians usually forget or ignore is that coaches handling a team cannot achieve success alone without the administrative support from the administrator and that is one thing I have suffered in handling the national team.
I pray the administrators this time around following their decision with the sound support and technical crew.
It is funny that a man has been with the national team but we don’t have a stable team.
In 1983 I had barely one 1year to prepare the team for the African Cup finals and we came out 2nd.
In 2002 I had barely 3months to prepare a new team for the world cup finals and the national team was disbanded in Mali around January, February 2002 and I was brought in by March to prepare the new team for the world cup finals in June for barely 3month.
Not only that, the players that were disbanded in Mali took a decision that they will not come if invited.
I trained the new boys and they started performing well, some members of the disbanded team pleaded to come back to the team which I allowed and that was a mistake I made.
Some of them who came back did well but about two or three deliberately came to sabotage and that’s why we didn’t go for the world cup.
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The young boys I brought together played 7 matches and won 5 of the matches which includes Ireland and Scotland underground.
However, there are a lot of things you can do to bring a team together, give them the necessary public and administrative support they will succeed.
So you’re saying the time is not short for the African Cup of Nations and you believe they can get the job done?
Ans- Yes, the situation that was created before I came in 2002 is not there now, they have a team on the ground but as of the time I came in there was no team on the ground because they were disbanded.
Most of the people selected to handle the team now have been there for some time. So all they need is sound support.
