Re: African Teams Will Never Win WC With Foreign Coaches
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:56 pm
This is a subject that I am most passionate about.Bell wrote:THIS IS NOT A NEW SUBJECT404 wrote:The history of the World Cup clearly demonstrates that to become a truly great footballing nation and to win the World Cup you must have a home grown coach who understands your footballing style, it’s strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, an innovator who understands the modern game is about time and space and how you craft a system of play that exploits time and space using your strengths! African players are physical, fast and have flair that is our natural strength—the question then becomes how do you craft a system of play that allows our strengths to overwhelm other playing styles like the European style of play that is more mechanical and discipline play! May I suggest that because our play is more physical and based on quickness that doesn’t mean it has to be chaotic and devoid of tactical play. What is needed are cerebral indigenous coaches that can formulate a system of play that harness our strengths and success will come if the coaches have a couple of players who have the intelligence to understand the system and like great quarterbacks can have the team implement the coach’s vision. We trying to out play the Europeans or South Americans using their style of play will never get us to the ultimate prize—World Cup Winners! We need to invest in our brightest and best indigenous coaches by giving them the support to be innovative and most importantly being patient with them and giving them the respect they deserve. R.l.P. Coaches Amodu & Keshi
The veterans on this forum will tell you that this subject was heatedly debated for decades here as the pendulum swung between what was called IC's (indigenous coaches) and FC's (foreign coaches). For a while it looked like Nigeria had become fully committed to the local coaches but swung back to foreign coaches with the hiring of Rohr. It seems there's little patience with the local coaches and are treated shabbily whereas foreign coaches are given an enabling environment. When a Nigerian coach is hired every gov't official thinks he can boss him around and every fan second guesses him. Even the players react by acting differently often coming late to camp.
Just to show you the mentality that sometimes prevail, a former Nigerian FA boss was said to have told people that his greatest regret in charge was not leaving the country with a capable foreign coach after he saw what he considered success by the likes of Cameroon and Ghana. Even the Falcons chimed in asking that they too should be given a foreign coach if one was given to the men. There are some fans who are only comfortable when they see a foreign coach on the Nigerian sideline.
Like the OP, some Nigerians have come to terms that the best option for the country going forward is to use indigenous coaches. However, Nigerians are loathe to do the lifting that comes with trying to accomplish things and are quick to jettison an experiment after the first failure.
What the OP is proposing requires people in the NFF and Sports Ministry to sit down to discuss the permanent way forward; let's hope things like this this cross their mind - too much thinking and too much time required. On my part I've suggested a coaching institution, affiliated with a university, open to other African countries that for coaches in all sports. It would cover specialized classroom courses, seminars and a period of apprenticeship. It fell mostly on deaf ears.
Bell
The fact is that no country has ever won the WC
with a foreign coach. EVERY country that has won
was coached by an indegene.
The most successful football nations in the world,
The trio of Brazil (5 wins), Germany (4wins) and
Italy (4 wins) have never hired a foreign coach,
EVER. These three countries account for well over
half of all WC tournaments. This is HOW the most
successful nations do it. Oh well........
I find it bitterly ironic and a little amusing that we
are coached by a German, whose nation will NEVER
consider a foreign coach.