Cybereagles

EII, I am fine thanks. Trust you are too. Thanks for reviving this thread, though after this reply, we may need to start a fresh thread for the 2019/2020 season.

I don't think any fan is sold on Surugede as Rangers coach, and it would appear neither is the club Management as he is but a caretaker coach. He has been Youth coach in Rangers for a couple of seasons but nothing spectacular and we are still waiting for the substantive coach.
MFM's former coach, Fidelis Ilechukwu, who may not have won anything yet but did very well to keep MFM among the top teams (much like Pochetino at Spurs) was touted at some point but he ended up in Heartland.
The Brazilian, Rafael Everton, who has been at Ifeanyi Ubah and Akwa United was also touted but so far nothing yet. He is still free, having just left Akwa United and so may yet end up with us and though I am not a big fan, I won't be too displeased to see him at Rangers (afterall he won the Confed cup - FA cup - with FCIU). I still remember with Nostalgia, the exploits of his compatriot, Roberto Diaz in the early 80's.

A number of new players have been recruited - Kehinde Adedipe (Rivers United), Obinna Eleje (unattached), Agu Kenechukwu (Lamryl United), Uche John (Enyimba), Ibrahim Olawoyin (Abia Warriors) and the most notable of them Ikechukwu Ibenegbu (alias mosquito, the veteran attacking midfielder who has been all over the place and lately with Enyimba). A couple were promoted from the youth team (Surugede boys??).
On the downside, we lost two of our best players of last season; our captain Godwin Aguda who left for a 2nd division team in Saudi Arabia, and Bright Silas (much loved goalscoring wide midfielder) who moved to a club in Egypt. We also lost Bobby Clement who was injured for much of last season and has returned to Kuwait for a second spell there.

Not knowing the current form of the team with all the changes in players and coaches, we can only hope and pray that they do well both at home and on the continent when the season starts soon. Our pre-season preparation however seems to be going well; we defeated Heartland (Ilechukwu et al) in Okigwe (Heartland's home) on Wednesday and will play Warri Wolves tomorrow Sunday in Warri. We also won the inuagural edition of the Enugu FA super cup (???).

Ukwala,

Thanks for the update. I sensed that this Suru-gede stuff isn't going to cut it but I was not sure. The loss of Amapakabo and then Ogunbote were big, in my opinion. I did not know what Suru-gede has done previously as coach. It seemed to me his claim is simply being a former Rangers' player.

Ilechukwu had shown ability to mold unknown names at MFM to become a respectable team year after year and I believe he will do well at Heartland. At MFM, he lost players annually to better financed clubs but kept the club at the top with unknown guys every year.

It really will be disappointing if Rangers join Pillars and Tornadoes as eliminated teams in the continent. I am not at all enthused by the recruitment. To contest for the continental trophies, our clubs must recruited the best players around the continent. We cannot compete against clubs from North Africa, South Africa, and Congo DR that recruit across the continent. We blame our continental woes on coaching in Nigeria but I believe it is a lazy cop-out. There are numerous reasons for non-performance and that includes poor recruitment. I read a recent interview of Esperance managers and they pointed out the importance of recruiting continent-wide if you hope to win in Africa. I have always believed this. Enyimba's victory in Africa was a major recruitment of the best Nigerian talent spearheaded by then NFF Sec-Gen Ogunjobi. Although it was not continent-wide but Enyimba was virtually home-based SE in those two years. Depending on regular recruitment of local talent as Rangers appear to have done instead of seeking Africa-wide talent is not going to cut it. It is a huge gap. Of course, there are other issues.

Thanks EnuguII. I had thought all along that the drivers in that nationwide player recruitment were Abia State's governor Orji Kalu and Enyimba's S-G Anyansi.

The two above could have been involved, particularly Anyansi but there is little doubt that Ogunjobi undertook it as a project at that time.

It was all down to Orji Uzor Kalu...
He masterminded the turnaround of Enyimba from a substantively “feeder” club to a juggernaut.

Kalu unsuccessfully tried to buy the club for most of the 90s, and when he became Gov provided unlimited funds to it. While Anyansi was his point man, he was very involved in the affairs of the club. Any role Ogunjobi played was secondary and wouldn’t have been anything more than as an enabler.

I recall that when Kalu was governor, he said he would float Enyimba on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. What happened to that plan for Enyimba to become financially independent?

ukwala,

I believe that clubs can be financially independent in Nigeria. However, the league has to make that amenable in several ways including scheduling and regulations. There are certainly opportunities as well as significant strengths in the Nigerian environment to make it possible but there are major restructuring that would be necessary, in my opinion.

But the idea of floating a Nigerian club in the Stock Exchange as is will simply fail. Why would anyone buy such a stock when the club is losing money and the industry regulation is adverse? Makes little sense. Things have to change ... that is where it starts.