Should Gernor Rohr Go or Stay ? (VOX POP)

[nanijoe]

First of all, you can acknowledge a bad situation without knowing the fix for the bad situation..With Rohr, there doesn't seem to be any ambition beyond participating . Many SE coaches have lost their jobs for getting a bronze at the Nation's Cup, but I sense our man Rohr did not see that as failure.

My gripe with the man is not even about tactics (which I can argue he's pretty poor at), but with his belief that Nigeria's level is such that we should be happy to just show up at tournaments.

Who replaces him? I'd rather have Osaze (or any number of ex SE) watch coaching videos for a week and take over the SE than Rohr with his participation trophies.

Rohr has already gotten it right..its just that his definition of getting it right is different from mine.

whether he's on $500 or $500,000 a month is irrelevant to me..the question you have to ask yourself is what makes you happy with the SE. If the answer is "we tried" , then Rohr is definitely your man.
If on the other hand Trophies mean anything to you..just follow a different sport until the man leaves.

The SE is essentially Everton[of a few years ago] at this point..they look good on paper, will beat many small teams..give some big teams trouble, but you can bet your paycheck they ain't winning diddly squat. I would rather be a Leicester who fights to avoid relegation one season, and wins it all [or at least has plans to]..another season.

Rohr is around $37k per month and not $100k per month..

Why are you wasting your time trying to set the records straight with those clowns above you, the only wey full their coconut heads na "sack Rohr" "sack Rohr*, OK after Rohr is sacked which world class coach have you recommended for the NFF? what plans have you cognitively suggested to move the SE(apparently the only functional and stable national team, the only salvageable beacon of hope for Nigerian football fans amidst a terrible year of football at all levels) forward into a stable transition when your "sack Rohr" prayers are answered? is Rohr the reason why our football even down to its grassroot level is fundamentally bad? or why our local league can't even produce decent players anymore? what are the guarantees the new manager won't come in and ruin a great team chemistry, disrupt what seems to be a promising rebuilding process, and shoehorn his own philosophy that might significantly see us failing to qualify for tournaments much less have any hopes of competing to win in any...? if you ask them thesr questions, don't let expect anything intelligent or constructive... all they know how to do best is recourse to knee-jerk emotional rants about how we are celebrating beating the likes of Lesotho, or how Rohr won bronze, or how Keshi won a AFCON gold medal blah blah blah blah, same old rinse and repeat one liners.

My Oga, so what and who is the alternative? No decent coach worth his salt will come close to the NFF.

Rohr should continue! He will get it right.

[Damunk]

First of all, you can acknowledge a bad situation without knowing the fix for the bad situation..With Rohr, there doesn't seem to be any ambition beyond participating . Many SE coaches have lost their jobs for getting a bronze at the Nation's Cup, but I sense our man Rohr did not see that as failure.

Like who?
And even if indeed there are "many of them", do you agree with that policy and don't you think such a policy has been counterproductive to the success of the SE over time?
It's either you believe we have been short-sighted, incompetent and unfair in our past handling of our local coaches and should learn from those mistakes, or you feel it was the right thing to do and we should continue with our famed world record-breaking 20/20 'vision'.

My gripe with the man is not even about tactics (which I can argue he's pretty poor at), but with his belief that Nigeria's level is such that we should be happy to just show up at tournaments.

With all due respect nanijoe, it seems you have been listening to Rohr's vicious critics who have no qualms distorting the picture, rather than listening to Rohr himself.
Yes, we have heard about him apparently being "happy just to turn up" just like we have heard how those of us that refuse to go OTT with our Rohr-bashing are apparently "happy" just to qualify, or "happy" with and therefore "over-celebrating" our bronze at AFCON.

Add to that your decision to ignore the fact that of late Rohr has acknowledged that his building process has entered a new phase and he is now actually talking about winning the next AFCON, completely betrays your determination to stick with the negative narrative.

Who replaces him? I'd rather have Osaze (or any number of ex SE) watch coaching videos for a week and take over the SE than Rohr with his participation trophies.

Yeah right.
We all know how Nigerians can descend with a vengeance on our local heroes when the shytt hits the fan, even more than foreigners.
Keshi, Onigbinde, Amodu, Oliseh heard wien from Nigerians ten times louder than even Aunty Betty.

Rohr has already gotten it right..its just that his definition of getting it right is different from mine.

Same narrative successfully repeated endlessly by the Rohrophobes, basically based on one tournament which itself was down to one match which in turn was down to one brilliant last-minute penalty.
Chai! Mahrez has killed Rohr in Nigeria o....

But its your prerogative to interpret events whichever way you want.

[Cellular]

Different things motivate Naijarians.
Some of us are quite happy with Rohr.
Some of us aren't.

Can't really be having a debate about Rohr with Naijarians who are just content with being one of the good teams rather than being the dominant team.

I have repeatedly stated that the team that does a 'rescue' mission is not typically suited for 'growth'. The skillsets are totally different.
It is like asking an EMT personnel to take over the treatment of a patient after the patient have been stabilized. Or thinking that the coach who helped you avoid relegation or got you promoted to the Premiership has the skill set to keep you there or help you become a top team.

Rohr hasn't shown to have the ability to give us the extra edge to win anything.

But to his credit, he has learned a thing or two... can that translate to winning something?
Tough management decision... do you let him go in the middle of qualification and chance not qualifying or do you let him finish qualification and take you to the tournament knowing fully well his limitations? You can't fire him in the middle of qualification nor fire him after qualification.

What you have is a Zugzwang situation.

[Cellular]

BTW, I like that he has brought stability to the team.
That there's competition of spots.
That he has used our 'best' players.
He has improved on his substitution (timeliness).

Think he needs to work on confidence.
How to finish our games.
Getting a balance.

On strategy and tactics, he is still figuring it out. But he has tried multiple formations and tactics... how do we get him to have that non-apologetic Naijarian swag. Knowing that ALL teams we play want to beat us to prove a point. And being humble won't make them like us... or that regardless of how low we have fallen that no one will have pity on us. I don't know if he has gotten what makes us, us?

[Damunk]

BTW, I like that he has brought stability to the team.
That there's competition of spots.
That he has used our 'best' players.
He has improved on his substitution (timeliness).....

Oga Cellular, let's have an honest discussion.....something which many on your side of the Rohr debate are not capable of or even willing to do.
So-so emotionality and selective nit-picking.

I'm simply picking up on the rest of your post....

Think he needs to work on confidence.

Tell me about this.
- Are you saying he lacks confidence, the players lack confidence or both?
- Are you asking of him/the team something that we have always had but is now lacking?
- Which SE team(s) would you say epitomised that confidence you refer to, and what did they achieve?
- What has obviously and (possibly) measurably changed?
- Are you perhaps seeing caution or patience or simply a personality difference as a lack of confidence?
- "The creeping of the lion is not a sign of fear or weakness"
Could this be what is happening here?

How to finish our games.

TWO crucial games under Rohr will forever stick in the memories of Nigerians"
1. The 2-1 loss to Argentina, knocking us out of the 2018 WC by conceding an 86th minute goal
2. The 2-1 loss to Algeria, knocking us out of the 2019 AFCON by conceding a 95th minute goal from a FK

Both games turned on a single incident
Against Argentina it was the Ighalo miss that would have won us the game but for his lack of composure, his technical limitations and arguably a wrong decision by the referee.
Against Algeria, a heartbreaking injury time moment of sheer brilliance by Mahrez in a game in which the SE statistically outperformed the Algerians in every measurable index (you can check)
These are the two games used to 'prove' that Rohr's teams are unable to 'finish' games.

So my Qs are:
- If those two key incidents had gone the other way (and they quite easily could have) would there really be a case for saying Rohr's teams do not know how to finish games?
- Are there other credible cases that 'prove' that his teams cannot finish games?
- Does his game record support this assertion or are we simply recycling a popular belief that has little or no basis but fits our prejudices?

Getting a balance.

Not sure what you mean but I assume you refer to getting a balance of when to go on the attack and when to go defensive?
Kindly explain.

On strategy and tactics, he is still figuring it out. But he has tried multiple formations and tactics

Which tactics are you recommending and on what basis?
You may not like his tactics but with all due respect, you are not a qualified coach. So the best you are entitled to is to run a commentary on his tactics with a 'no liability' disclaimer. It therefore means your opinion can not in any way be recognised as having any validity, no matter the number of armchair commentators echoing your same sentiment.
However, as a layman and fan you could argue more generally that he is "a bad coach", which of course would be evidence-based.
Is that the case here?

... how do we get him to have that non-apologetic Naijarian swag. Knowing that ALL teams we play want to beat us to prove a point. And being humble won't make them like us... or that regardless of how low we have fallen that no one will have pity on us. I don't know if he has gotten what makes us, us?

This is interesting but has ZERO impact on game outcome.
Performance against Nigeria has zilch to do with whether they like us or hate us and it is interesting that you feel you are telling Rohr something for him to learn in that regard.

That you think he tones down the pre-match rhetoric because he believes it makes our opponents like or "pity" us more - or hate us less - is laughable.
Your statement must be tongue-in-cheek.
Really? You really believe this Chief?

What about the more likely explanation: that he has come to respect every nation and he is simply not the boastful type? How come when Klopp and Pep and Pochettino in all their wisdom and success talk up the opposition and downplay their own rhetoric it is accepted, but when Rohr does same, it is seen as lacking confidence and signs of an inferiority complex?

Nigerians might like to boast - often quite emptily - but we are not all like that and if I were privileged to lead a Nigerian group of individuals into competition whatever they might be, boasting and talking big would NOT be my strategy.
Boasting only means you are not used to where you're at, or where you believe you're at. I actually see it as a sign of weakness.
Yet I am a Nigerian.

Anyway, I doubt there is any evidence that boasting got us very far and there's even less evidence that any Nigerian Head coach in the past disrespected our opponents in the way that is being suggested.

Oh.... except that infamous Chile '87 U-20 team that got beaten like they stole something.....

Happy Sunday.

[Bigpokey24]

We are still wasting time with ****.. even the pathetic assanal football club just fired unaenemy. this same unaenemy only lost 2 games in 10 matches...we won't qualify for Qatar with **** in charge

[Cellular]

See my response.

BTW, I like that he has brought stability to the team.
That there's competition of spots.
That he has used our 'best' players.
He has improved on his substitution (timeliness).....

Oga Cellular, let's have an honest discussion.....something which many on your side of the Rohr debate are not capable of or even willing to do.
So-so emotionality and selective nit-picking.

I'm simply picking up on the rest of your post....

Think he needs to work on confidence.

Tell me about this.
- Are you saying he lacks confidence, the players lack confidence or both?
- Are you asking of him/the team something that we have always had but is now lacking?
- Which SE team(s) would you say epitomised that confidence you refer to, and what did they achieve?
- What has obviously and (possibly) measurably changed?
- Are you perhaps seeing caution or patience or simply a personality difference as a lack of confidence?
- "The creeping of the lion is not a sign of fear or weakness"
Could this be what is happening here?

When he started, he had us playing they 'typical German' conservative football. That is not us. He also had us believing that we had no business expecting to beat higher-ranked teams. That again, this is not us. We have always believed that with the right manager we can impose our will on teams. It is one thing to not underestimate your opponents but you also have to realize that the reputation of Naijarians precedes them. Take for instances our rivalry with certain teams, like SA, the animosity is real at least on their part... we have no business losing to them especially in Naijaria. You also have games where we found out rightfully so that we could beat and take these teams but he was more concerned about not losing than in going in with the aim to win. He had a defeatist complex. Teams typically adopt the personality of their coach. I don't care to hear about how Madagascar qualified first or how the pedigree of other players on other teams is an indication of what we should expect of the team. When we were beating European Champions and getting out of our WC groups, were we ranked higher than the teams we beat on the way to coming out of the group? Whenever have we gone to the AFCON and excited or happy coming in 3rd? Those are not our expectations of the team. He has to understand that rudimentary mindset of Naijarians. We don't play second fiddle to anyone. He has to instil that belief on his team that they can play with anyone and even beat anyone on any given day. And no, losing is NOT acceptable or should be excused.

How to finish our games.

TWO crucial games under Rohr will forever stick in the memories of Nigerians"
1. The 2-1 loss to Argentina, knocking us out of the 2018 WC by conceding an 86th minute goal
2. The 2-1 loss to Algeria, knocking us out of the 2019 AFCON by conceding a 95th minute goal from a FK

Both games turned on a single incident
Against Argentina it was the Ighalo miss that would have won us the game but for his lack of composure, his technical limitations and arguably a wrong decision by the referee.
Against Algeria, a heartbreaking injury time moment of sheer brilliance by Mahrez in a game in which the SE statistically outperformed the Algerians in every measurable index (you can check)
These are the two games used to 'prove' that Rohr's teams are unable to 'finish' games.

So my Qs are:
- If those two key incidents had gone the other way (and they quite easily could have) would there really be a case for saying Rohr's teams do not know how to finish games?
- Are there other credible cases that 'prove' that his teams cannot finish games?
- Does his game record support this assertion or are we simply recycling a popular belief that has little or no basis but fits our prejudices?

You also forgot friendly games against England and Ukraine.
In a the games you mentioned, he wasn't undone by just individual errors. He was undone by his reluctance then to make changes when his team were on the back foot. Go to the game threads. Tired players make unforced physical and mental errors. He has improved on the timeliness of his subs. He is reading the games quicker than he used to. He was the ONE LEARNING, not the players.

Getting a balance.

Not sure what you mean but I assume you refer to getting a balance of when to go on the attack and when to go defensive?
Kindly explain.

Initially, his team was solid defensively. You will recall that you yourself observed the dearth of goal scoring opportunities. He has worked on that and the team has improved in that regard. But have taken a step back in the defensive solidity. That is what I was talking about balance. Are we capable of having balance when we become more offensive? Can we have a team that attacks in numbers yet defend as a unit? I don't know. I was just pointing out that he addressed one noticeable shortcomings and a solid part of the team took a hit. We can improve on that.

On strategy and tactics, he is still figuring it out. But he has tried multiple formations and tactics

Which tactics are you recommending and on what basis?
You may not like his tactics but with all due respect, you are not a qualified coach. So the best you are entitled to is to run a commentary on his tactics with a 'no liability' disclaimer. It therefore means your opinion can not in any way be recognised as having any validity, no matter the number of armchair commentators echoing your same sentiment.
However, as a layman and fan you could argue more generally that he is "a bad coach", which of course would be evidence-based.
Is that the case here?

I am not qualified to coach. I never criticised his tactics or his strategy just pointing out that he is still working on getting both right. It is an observation. My opinion is my opinion. I don't need to be a coach to recognize that Rohr is still trying different stuff to see what best works for his team. It is not a criticism of his tactics.

... how do we get him to have that non-apologetic Naijarian swag. Knowing that ALL teams we play want to beat us to prove a point. And being humble won't make them like us... or that regardless of how low we have fallen that no one will have pity on us. I don't know if he has gotten what makes us, us?

This is interesting but has ZERO impact on game outcome.
Performance against Nigeria has zilch to do with whether they like us or hate us and it is interesting that you feel you are telling Rohr something for him to learn in that regard.

That you think he tones down the pre-match rhetoric because he believes it makes our opponents like or "pity" us more - or hate us less - is laughable.
Your statement must be tongue-in-cheek.
Really? You really believe this Chief?

What about the more likely explanation: that he has come to respect every nation and he is simply not the boastful type? How come when Klopp and Pep and Pochettino in all their wisdom and success talk up the opposition and downplay their own rhetoric it is accepted, but when Rohr does same, it is seen as lacking confidence and signs of an inferiority complex?

Nigerians might like to boast - often quite emptily - but we are not all like that and if I were privileged to lead a Nigerian group of individuals into competition whatever they might be, boasting and talking big would NOT be my strategy.
Boasting only means you are not used to where you're at, or where you believe you're at. I actually see it as a sign of weakness.
Yet I am a Nigerian.

Anyway, I doubt there is any evidence that boasting got us very far and there's even less evidence that any Nigerian Head coach in the past disrespected our opponents in the way that is being suggested.

In professional sports, motivation and sports psychology is a big factor in getting the best out of your players. It is the reason some players 'play' for a particular coach and some seem disinterested in being at their best for another coach. Players tell you this all the time...that they would run through a wall for a particular coach... or that they believe in a particular coach's game plan that they won't deviate and start playing for themselves.

Regarding certain games, there are RIVALRY GAMES... your records doesn't matter in such games. Players get up for such games. It is important for the coach to know the games that have extra motivation for the players. He should be aware of it and treat such games like the only game that matters. It is about knowing your team and your opponents. We would be doing him a disservice by not pointing out those games to him. Or the fact that EVERY team in Africa want to beat the proud and arrogant Naijarians. And he should coach such games with the same passion. Because it is personal for the players and the fans.

Interesting you bring up Klopp and Pep. You will never see them counting their teams out or saying that they are okay with a respectable showing. Those men are highly competitive. They have never justified losing even when they have justifiable reasons. Would Rohr have given Liverpool a chance to keep Barcelona out of the post if he was Liverpool coach. Klopp positivity is infectious. You see it... and it transfers to his players. Same with Pep. Would you honestly say that there's a game Naijaria will be going in as underdogs that you will have confidence that Rohr will beat the team? Most people's confidence index is that Rohr can only beat teams he is supposed to beat and lose to ones he is not supposed to beat. That is not our lot.

Oh.... except that infamous Chile '87 U-20 team that got beaten like they stole something.....

Happy Sunday.