Nigerian Players nominated for Ballon D'OR since 1995

[Bigpokey24]

All developed from naija proper, be it the local league or the Youth teams . As i said these are the only type of players who will break transfer records on get close to winning APOY /WPOY...but no , some jokers on SE do not believe in grassroot development or recruiting players from Nigeria....instead we are stuck with DIV 2 prospects like Ajayi, Ekong, Aribo etc.. Can you imagine these are the new norm...smh.. this is why we now lose at home to GB, CAR , and struggling to win a WCQ at home

[kali]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

[Damunk]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

[Bigpokey24]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

how come all the abroad recruits who started all their football from the abroad, never ever gets nominated or gets a club to go gaga in the transfer market? We had to wait 20 plus years for another player from our youth system. If you cannot see this, then you aren't being honest . the players who weren't good enough by their adopted nations do not elevate the SE . They are yet to take the SE to another level

[Bigpokey24]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

[Enyi]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

[maceo4]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

how come all the abroad recruits who started all their football from the abroad, never ever gets nominated or gets a club to go gaga in the transfer market? We had to wait 20 plus years for another player from our youth system. If you cannot see this, then you aren't being honest . the players who weren't good enough by their adopted nations do not elevate the SE . They are yet to take the SE to another level

To get the true top tier talent you have to develop them! Simple as that, it would almost be impossible for another country to develop a Ballon D'or level talent just to allow another country (a lesser one at that) to poach them...it very rarely happens...So the bigger focus needs to be on developing talent from home (at that 0-18yrs stage), which can be supplemented by any left overs from other countries who will improve our team. Yes the likes of Osimhen went to Europe at 17/18, but its disingenuous to mention that without mentioning that they went through our youth system in their formative years. 17/18+ is past those years and more so into the professional years of a player and yes that is when they can explore their options in the highest paying leagues. But doesn't change the fact that they were developed in Nigeria and belong to us.

[maceo4]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

[Damunk]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

You’re gonna have to wait a long long time for that to come to fruition.
Things rarely work in isolation of the wider environment.

[Bigpokey24]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

[Enyi]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

Mace….ur right but we can still focus on both no?

I don’t think that there are mutually exclusive?

We can intergrate them into the youth setup…. Early, organise tournaments here and get them to play before an SE game….

Saka’s role model growing was Kanu….if am not mistaken

Every footballer loves JJ….

Intergrate them early…..don’t wait till there are in the top teams to have a say….every one in the academy knew that Saka was going to be a superstar years before he became mainstream……

Rohr noted Eze and Olise early…..

This does not stop u developing the local league…. In fact, if ur league is top notch, u can invite them to watch a league game…..

The bottom line is this; our NFF like Nigerian Leadership is Lazy….only one thing is important to them….their pockets simple…..

The reason is purely based on the fact that Nigerian as a whole (according to those I know well) are very ungrateful….so u are better off thinking for your own and moving on….

[Enyi]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

Mace….ur right but we can still focus on both no?

I don’t think that there are mutually exclusive?

We can intergrate them into the youth setup…. Early, organise tournaments here and get them to play before an SE game….

Saka’s role model growing was Kanu….if am not mistaken

Every footballer loves JJ….

Intergrate them early…..don’t wait till there are in the top teams to have a say….every one in the academy knew that Saka was going to be a superstar years before he became mainstream……

Rohr noted Eze and Olise early…..

This does not stop u developing the local league…. In fact, if ur league is top notch, u can invite them to watch a league game…..

The bottom line is this; our NFF like Nigerian Leadership is Lazy….only one thing is important to them….their pockets simple…..

The reason is purely based on the fact that Nigerian as a whole (according to those I know well) are very ungrateful….so u are better off thinking for your own and moving on….

No offence intended

[Bigpokey24]

^ you do know integrating them early won't deter them from picking who they want to play for. Players can switch nationalities until 21 or so. The bottom-line , work on fixing those at home. We produced players from 1994 to 2000 winning individual awards etc .

Our Youth development has always been the bedrock when it comes to stocking the SE with promising future prospects. We stopped investing in that and chose to focus on abroad recruits especially from the UK due to picnic who was keen on never looking inwards.

[Damunk]

^ you do know integrating them early won't deter them from picking who they want to play for. Players can switch nationalities until 21 or so. The bottom-line , work on fixing those at home. We produced players from 1994 to 2000 winning individual awards etc .

Our Youth development has always been the bedrock when it comes to stocking the SE with promising future prospects. We stopped investing in that and chose to focus on abroad recruits especially from the UK due to picnic who was keen on never looking inwards.

Can you demonstrate this oft-repeated assertion.
Everyone repeats it but I’ve never seen any demonstrable evidence of any sort which actually proves that investment in youth football has stopped or even dropped.
Sorry, assume I’m not paying attention but because everyone repeats it over and over does not actually make it true.
Joseph Goebbels tried to convince us it does.

Anyway, it would be nice to see some facts rather than recycled opinion.

[maceo4]

The 1990s players left Nigeria young. Except Finidi all left at age 18 or 19 or 20. No different from Victor Osihmen.

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

Mace….ur right but we can still focus on both no?

I don’t think that there are mutually exclusive?

We can intergrate them into the youth setup…. Early, organise tournaments here and get them to play before an SE game….

Saka’s role model growing was Kanu….if am not mistaken

Every footballer loves JJ….

Intergrate them early…..don’t wait till there are in the top teams to have a say….every one in the academy knew that Saka was going to be a superstar years before he became mainstream……

Rohr noted Eze and Olise early…..

This does not stop u developing the local league…. In fact, if ur league is top notch, u can invite them to watch a league game…..

The bottom line is this; our NFF like Nigerian Leadership is Lazy….only one thing is important to them….their pockets simple…..

The reason is purely based on the fact that Nigerian as a whole (according to those I know well) are very ungrateful….so u are better off thinking for your own and moving on….

No offence intended

None taken my broda, I agree we should do both, I guess my disagreement would be IMO taking care of home is primary and any other players we get from anywhere else is just jara…Countries that do it right don’t worry or focus so much on getting players from other countries…The Brazils, France, England etc, we need to find a country we can model our system after and focus on developing our own Sakas abeg…

[Enyi]

Plus it has taken 25 years since 1998 for the next nominees to emerge.
That’s a reflection of our football’s relative drop in quality; not whether our players were born in Nigeria or not.
Bigporkey doesn’t quite get it….unfortunately.

The penny might drop some day…

no disrespect, stop changing my user name, it is bigpokey. if you cannot see that CAF players who starts their football from back home are the better players at the long run then you aren't paying attention. Those players will always be better because they had to earn it and go through the struggles of competing against home grown talents in the foreign leagues .

Eto, Essien, Yaya, Jayjay, Mikel, Mane, Salah, Osimhen , Enyeama etcc.. now compare with , Okoye, Ekong, Agboola,

Bigpokey, another way of looking at it is this…..

Are we picking on scraps because our NFF are not bothered to do the proper scouting and get the real talents involved early?

Think Saka and Eze could well be in the SE now if we are organised and do things the right way….

Then you would have had the likes of Alaba etc on the list

IMHO, we don't deserve these players as we didn't develop them. What more proper scouting can you as an outsider do that would be better than the ones actually working with them everyday to develop them? There's no way we would have better knowledge of kids in the England development track than the English national teams. For the most part we (as a 3rd world country/continent) cannot realistically expect to be the first choice for these kids, especially when we had little to do with their development. Not saying we shouldn't go after them, but I feel like over-focusing on nicking one or two of them rather than building our own development pipeline back home is very short-sighted and is a set up for failure. Also a by-product of us getting our stuff right back home will actually help to make us more attractive to these foreign kids as they see us doing the right things in our footie rather than looking for short cuts and it will show in the success of our teams at all levels. We would be more self-sufficient and not always trying to beg the next shiny thing England or France produces that has a spec of Naija blood in them to please consider us.

Mace….ur right but we can still focus on both no?

I don’t think that there are mutually exclusive?

We can intergrate them into the youth setup…. Early, organise tournaments here and get them to play before an SE game….

Saka’s role model growing was Kanu….if am not mistaken

Every footballer loves JJ….

Intergrate them early…..don’t wait till there are in the top teams to have a say….every one in the academy knew that Saka was going to be a superstar years before he became mainstream……

Rohr noted Eze and Olise early…..

This does not stop u developing the local league…. In fact, if ur league is top notch, u can invite them to watch a league game…..

The bottom line is this; our NFF like Nigerian Leadership is Lazy….only one thing is important to them….their pockets simple…..

The reason is purely based on the fact that Nigerian as a whole (according to those I know well) are very ungrateful….so u are better off thinking for your own and moving on….

No offence intended

None taken my broda, I agree we should do both, I guess my disagreement would be IMO taking care of home is primary and any other players we get from anywhere else is just jara…Countries that do it right don’t worry or focus so much on getting players from other countries…The Brazils, France, England etc, we need to find a country we can model our system after and focus on developing our own Sakas abeg…

Totally …..developing yours should always be primary, once you do…everything else slots into place….

Good pitches, revenue, paying Coaches etc…

[Enyi]

^ you do know integrating them early won't deter them from picking who they want to play for. Players can switch nationalities until 21 or so. The bottom-line , work on fixing those at home. We produced players from 1994 to 2000 winning individual awards etc .

Our Youth development has always been the bedrock when it comes to stocking the SE with promising future prospects. We stopped investing in that and chose to focus on abroad recruits especially from the UK due to picnic who was keen on never looking inwards.

What is the thing you hear all the time…..?

I feel more connected to this youth team!!

Things are that kids that play together will be friends and keep in touch and want to play together again later in life……

Nothing guarantees anything….Someone like Dele Ali…. Nothing will make him play for Nigeria….guy hated his Dad

[kali]

The reason imho why the gulf in Nigerian Ballon D'or talent is over 25 years is because for a very brief period from around 1990 - 1998 Nigeria built a formidable national team. A lot of those players went to top clubs were they were visible.

Nigeria got that concentration of talent because they scouted for it.

It was not accidental like Mikel who went from Nigeria to Cape Town to Norway before Siasia recognized his talent and put him in the wyc.

Osihmen only got into the u17 team by accident when Amunike ran an open invite camp which he went to last minute. The U17 tournament the raw ability was there and he got his European move.

I personally believe Nigeria has a huge number of undiscovered footballing talent that requires dedicated scouting. I think if any state governor held a national youth championship tournament with $1million prize for REAL U21 with 32 of the best teams represented from every part of the country you would find at least 1 world class talent who would be worth $50m in transfer fees in 5 years. I am surprised none of them has thought about doing it.

[Bigpokey24]

The reason imho why the gulf in Nigerian Ballon D'or talent is over 25 years is because for a very brief period from around 1990 - 1998 Nigeria built a formidable national team. A lot of those players went to top clubs were they were visible.

Nigeria got that concentration of talent because they scouted for it.

It was not accidental like Mikel who went from Nigeria to Cape Town to Norway before Siasia recognized his talent and put him in the wyc.

Osihmen only got into the u17 team by accident when Amunike ran an open invite camp which he went to last minute. The U17 tournament the raw ability was there and he got his European move.

I personally believe Nigeria has a huge number of undiscovered footballing talent that requires dedicated scouting. I think if any state governor held a national youth championship tournament with $1million prize for REAL U21 with 32 of the best teams represented from every part of the country you would find at least 1 world class talent who would be worth $50m in transfer fees in 5 years. I am surprised none of them has thought about doing it.

Adding to the above. The current u17 that failed to qualify do have some serious footballers and they are actual u17s. The u20 that went to Argentina do have at least 3 players from that squad that can be added to the SE player pool. Benjamin is a prospect and i view him as someone who can flourish if all goes to plan. The youth teams of Nigeria will continue to produce world class footballers.