If EGUAVOEN Stays on... He will and SHOULD clean house...Bet on it

[Enugu II]

VE, Aina kinda kills your argument. Akpoguma and Ebuehi hadn’t really cemented their place on the team so dropping them is not a big deal. I can’t see how Pinnick that loves everything foreign and had been bragging about getting these foreign players knowing their parents etc would not want to take them. There just wasn’t enough time to get the likes of Ejaria and Lookman involved in the team. Their time will come.

Mace04

Here is my speculation on both Ejaria and Lookman. I feel that since this list was drawn up by Rohr that both names were possibly on the list of 40. Sure Rohr never previously invited them but as you well know Rohr did not fancy changing personnel on the squad wily-nily.

However, there are deadlines for cutting down the list. At that point, Egu was appointed. He had to cut down the list to 23. At this point, even if Rohr was still around, both players would have been cut regardless because there was no time for practices. Nevertheless with Rohr gone, additional players like Akpoguma etc had to be taken off the list as well, and likes of Nwakali, etc added. Just my take.

[vancity eagle]

VE, Aina kinda kills your argument. Akpoguma and Ebuehi hadn’t really cemented their place on the team so dropping them is not a big deal. I can’t see how Pinnick that loves everything foreign and had been bragging about getting these foreign players knowing their parents etc would not want to take them. There just wasn’t enough time to get the likes of Ejaria and Lookman involved in the team. Their time will come.

Maceo please stop using these silly excuses.

Aina is pretty much a starter, he is well established as a RB.

Neither Akpoguma nor Ebuehi have been given a fair chance in SE, yet both are playing at a high enough level to at least be in the mix.

Ebuehi has even played well every time he has played for SE. There simply is no good reason for him to be dropped. He can even play both on the left and the right. Akpoguma has never been played in his optimal position.

I will even speculate that there are NFF people who forced Rohr's hand NOT TO PLAY THESE PLAYERS so as to protect their "favored guys"

Instead of seeing Akpoguma and Ebuehi we get to protect guys like Shehu and Omeruo.

So there "just wasn't enough time for Lookman and EJaria" ?

But there was time to force Ndah into the squad ?

Are we in need of central defenders or more in need of technical midfielders ?

To say Ejaria had no time (even though we need a player like him) yet Ndah has time (we dont need a player like him) is very disingenuous.

Pinnick although he loves foreign. Have you ever considered that he does not control everything in the NFF.

It is clear there are 2 factions in the NFF. One which seems to despise the foreign borns and wanted to implement homebased quotas on Rohr, and then the Pinnick faction who likes anything foreign.

The other faction seems to be taking over slowly.

[Otitokoro]

Your argument would have made a lot of sense, if it wasn't off target.
The players you mentioned, specifically Ndidi, Osimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi and a host of others like Kalu, Simon, Onyeka, Dennis, Zaidu Sanusi and even Francis Uzoho did NOT play a single match in the NPFL. They were mostly poached from Academies. The so called 'talents that are abound' in Nigeria that you mention have all been monitored in their respective academies by foreign clubs, who have been very quick to poach them - that's where the likes of Kalu, et.al. came from. A foreign club will rightly rather invest in a young, Nigerian academy player who they know has financial growth potential THAN a so called NPFL player, who has very likely lied about his age and has hardly played structured football (which the academies are noted for).

The arguments for the inclusion of HB NPFL players is really unrealistic and very silly to me, as the fundamentals for it to thrive is non-existent (funding, infrastructure and viewership). Nobody cares to watch the NPFL, as the bulk of football fans (from young to old) would rather watch the European top leagues. This means it is impossible for HB players to develop and present a level of competition with those playing overseas. Many of the folks agitating for HB are either living in la-la land or drunk on nostalgia and seriously need to go back home and see the moribund state of affairs of things. I really don't see any hope for home based players. Those that have missed the Academy boat are done. The best they can hope for is a team on the continent in Africa, or some team in a East Asia.

Ndah could possess all the technical ability in the world - don't mean a hill of beans. You have to look at his marketability risk. Which big club out there would want to invest millions on a player that started out in Malta and ended up playing in the Nigerian league? Major red flag. Sadly, at 24, the best he can likely hope for is where he is now - SA.

Look, we Nigerians love to fool ourselves and hate to face reality. The path forward for our football growth and development is to harness two talent streams:
a. The young Nigerian Academy players (who now serve as the pipeline for our youth teams, which acts as a staging point for their next steps into Europe) AND
b. Our Foreign bred players (who want to play for their fatherland).

The path of NPFL players is a lost cause, for the simple reasons I provided earlier and will continue to get worse!.
That, is the unfortunate truth!

We should have some pride in valuing our home based players. Indded, our current best players honed their skills locally (Ndidi, Isimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi etc). These are players are way above the best of our foreign grown players, and can easily be in the squads of the leading European national teams. The FB players we seem to consider superior are really players that are not and will not be considered remotely good enough for the European national teams (Ekong, Balogun, Lookman, Ejaria, even Iwobi). The really good eligible FB players simply do not consider Nigeria (Saka, Alaba, Ogbonna etc) Those that stand a chance to be selected in European teams are holding out (Eze, Adarabioyo, Danjuma, Tomori). Akpoguma had very good prospects to play for the German national team, but injuries and a loss of form have led to his exclusion, and he is currently not considered a key player at Hoffenheim. Why should there be such outcry about his not being selected? Please lets put things in perspective.

We also have many home groomed potentially super class players. If well managed, SE can compete with any of the European teams, so why should we feel that players who are not considered good enough for those teams are better than ours? Stephen Keshi and Chidi Nwanu were local boys who blossomed with the right exposure in Europe. Our other past heroes (Yekini, Okocha, Kanu, Amuneke, Taribo, Uche, Mikel, Oliseh, Amokachi) were all very much skilled locally, before maturing their skills with international exposures. Sometimes, really talented players may not get the luck or opportunity of finding suitable foreign clubs at the right time (eg Thompson Usiyen). The talents abound locally, and we need to tap in those. That we have won many U17 World cups is a testimony to this. With ex-Internationals like Finidi now starting to coach at the local league level, things can improve. From what I have seen of Ndah, he is naturally technically superior to the likes of Ekong and Balogun, and needs the chance to improve on his weak areas through the right exposure. Another potentially good CB is Valentine Ozornwafor. For various reasons, they may not immediately break into top European teams. Giving these guys a chance within the squads can only be the right investment on players who are solely invested in Nigeria. For the foreign groomed talents, I feel Calvin Bassey is good prospect, and should be encouraged (the chances are that he may have displaced Leon Balogun already from the Gers starting line up, yet Leon who has not played for over a month is selected ahead of him). Similarly, Ebuehi is maturing, and offers good options at the FB position.

A better organized NFF, resulting in a better managed SE, would also make SE more attractive to the really exciting eligible FB talents; to want to opt for Nigeria at the very early stage before they are selected by the foreign countries. There may still be a chance for Eze at Crystal Palace. There is also the Arsenal goalie; Arthur Okonkwo. At the moment we are only attracting those that are unable to cut it at the national level in their home countries, and it is somewhat disgusting that some us are tied to this idea that any foreign player that is top 5 league in Europe is automatically better than our home talent. It does not take much to put together an SE team to easily compete with and beat England routinely. Why should we applaud England and Germany rejects as better than ours? Please stop the misguided inferiority, take pride in our inherent talent.

[Dammy]

Your argument would have made a lot of sense, if it wasn't off target.
The players you mentioned, specifically Ndidi, Osimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi and a host of others like Kalu, Simon, Onyeka, Dennis, Zaidu Sanusi and even Francis Uzoho did NOT play a single match in the NPFL. They were mostly poached from Academies. The so called 'talents that are abound' in Nigeria that you mention have all been monitored in their respective academies by foreign clubs, who have been very quick to poach them - that's where the likes of Kalu, et.al. came from. A foreign club will rightly rather invest in a young, Nigerian academy player who they know has financial growth potential THAN a so called NPFL player, who has very likely lied about his age and has hardly played structured football (which the academies are noted for).

The arguments for the inclusion of HB NPFL players is really unrealistic and very silly to me, as the fundamentals for it to thrive is non-existent (funding, infrastructure and viewership). Nobody cares to watch the NPFL, as the bulk of football fans (from young to old) would rather watch the European top leagues. This means it is impossible for HB players to develop and present a level of competition with those playing overseas. Many of the folks agitating for HB are either living in la-la land or drunk on nostalgia and seriously need to go back home and see the moribund state of affairs of things. I really don't see any hope for home based players. Those that have missed the Academy boat are done. The best they can hope for is a team on the continent in Africa, or some team in a East Asia.

Ndah could possess all the technical ability in the world - don't mean a hill of beans. You have to look at his marketability risk. Which big club out there would want to invest millions on a player that started out in Malta and ended up playing in the Nigerian league? Major red flag. Sadly, at 24, the best he can likely hope for is where he is now - SA.

Look, we Nigerians love to fool ourselves and hate to face reality. The path forward for our football growth and development is to harness two talent streams:
a. The young Nigerian Academy players (who now serve as the pipeline for our youth teams, which acts as a staging point for their next steps into Europe) AND
b. Our Foreign bred players (who want to play for their fatherland).

The path of NPFL players is a lost cause, for the simple reasons I provided earlier and will continue to get worse!.
That, is the unfortunate truth!

We should have some pride in valuing our home based players. Indded, our current best players honed their skills locally (Ndidi, Isimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi etc). These are players are way above the best of our foreign grown players, and can easily be in the squads of the leading European national teams. The FB players we seem to consider superior are really players that are not and will not be considered remotely good enough for the European national teams (Ekong, Balogun, Lookman, Ejaria, even Iwobi). The really good eligible FB players simply do not consider Nigeria (Saka, Alaba, Ogbonna etc) Those that stand a chance to be selected in European teams are holding out (Eze, Adarabioyo, Danjuma, Tomori). Akpoguma had very good prospects to play for the German national team, but injuries and a loss of form have led to his exclusion, and he is currently not considered a key player at Hoffenheim. Why should there be such outcry about his not being selected? Please lets put things in perspective.

We also have many home groomed potentially super class players. If well managed, SE can compete with any of the European teams, so why should we feel that players who are not considered good enough for those teams are better than ours? Stephen Keshi and Chidi Nwanu were local boys who blossomed with the right exposure in Europe. Our other past heroes (Yekini, Okocha, Kanu, Amuneke, Taribo, Uche, Mikel, Oliseh, Amokachi) were all very much skilled locally, before maturing their skills with international exposures. Sometimes, really talented players may not get the luck or opportunity of finding suitable foreign clubs at the right time (eg Thompson Usiyen). The talents abound locally, and we need to tap in those. That we have won many U17 World cups is a testimony to this. With ex-Internationals like Finidi now starting to coach at the local league level, things can improve. From what I have seen of Ndah, he is naturally technically superior to the likes of Ekong and Balogun, and needs the chance to improve on his weak areas through the right exposure. Another potentially good CB is Valentine Ozornwafor. For various reasons, they may not immediately break into top European teams. Giving these guys a chance within the squads can only be the right investment on players who are solely invested in Nigeria. For the foreign groomed talents, I feel Calvin Bassey is good prospect, and should be encouraged (the chances are that he may have displaced Leon Balogun already from the Gers starting line up, yet Leon who has not played for over a month is selected ahead of him). Similarly, Ebuehi is maturing, and offers good options at the FB position.

A better organized NFF, resulting in a better managed SE, would also make SE more attractive to the really exciting eligible FB talents; to want to opt for Nigeria at the very early stage before they are selected by the foreign countries. There may still be a chance for Eze at Crystal Palace. There is also the Arsenal goalie; Arthur Okonkwo. At the moment we are only attracting those that are unable to cut it at the national level in their home countries, and it is somewhat disgusting that some us are tied to this idea that any foreign player that is top 5 league in Europe is automatically better than our home talent. It does not take much to put together an SE team to easily compete with and beat England routinely. Why should we applaud England and Germany rejects as better than ours? Please stop the misguided inferiority, take pride in our inherent talent.

[Dammy]

Your argument would have made a lot of sense, if it wasn't off target.
The players you mentioned, specifically Ndidi, Osimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi and a host of others like Kalu, Simon, Onyeka, Dennis, Zaidu Sanusi and even Francis Uzoho did NOT play a single match in the NPFL. They were mostly poached from Academies. The so called 'talents that are abound' in Nigeria that you mention have all been monitored in their respective academies by foreign clubs, who have been very quick to poach them - that's where the likes of Kalu, et.al. came from. A foreign club will rightly rather invest in a young, Nigerian academy player who they know has financial growth potential THAN a so called NPFL player, who has very likely lied about his age and has hardly played structured football (which the academies are noted for).

The arguments for the inclusion of HB NPFL players is really unrealistic and very silly to me, as the fundamentals for it to thrive is non-existent (funding, infrastructure and viewership). Nobody cares to watch the NPFL, as the bulk of football fans (from young to old) would rather watch the European top leagues. This means it is impossible for HB players to develop and present a level of competition with those playing overseas. Many of the folks agitating for HB are either living in la-la land or drunk on nostalgia and seriously need to go back home and see the moribund state of affairs of things. I really don't see any hope for home based players. Those that have missed the Academy boat are done. The best they can hope for is a team on the continent in Africa, or some team in a East Asia.

Ndah could possess all the technical ability in the world - don't mean a hill of beans. You have to look at his marketability risk. Which big club out there would want to invest millions on a player that started out in Malta and ended up playing in the Nigerian league? Major red flag. Sadly, at 24, the best he can likely hope for is where he is now - SA.

Look, we Nigerians love to fool ourselves and hate to face reality. The path forward for our football growth and development is to harness two talent streams:
a. The young Nigerian Academy players (who now serve as the pipeline for our youth teams, which acts as a staging point for their next steps into Europe) AND
b. Our Foreign bred players (who want to play for their fatherland).

The path of NPFL players is a lost cause, for the simple reasons I provided earlier and will continue to get worse!.
That, is the unfortunate truth!

We should have some pride in valuing our home based players. Indded, our current best players honed their skills locally (Ndidi, Isimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi etc). These are players are way above the best of our foreign grown players, and can easily be in the squads of the leading European national teams. The FB players we seem to consider superior are really players that are not and will not be considered remotely good enough for the European national teams (Ekong, Balogun, Lookman, Ejaria, even Iwobi). The really good eligible FB players simply do not consider Nigeria (Saka, Alaba, Ogbonna etc) Those that stand a chance to be selected in European teams are holding out (Eze, Adarabioyo, Danjuma, Tomori). Akpoguma had very good prospects to play for the German national team, but injuries and a loss of form have led to his exclusion, and he is currently not considered a key player at Hoffenheim. Why should there be such outcry about his not being selected? Please lets put things in perspective.

We also have many home groomed potentially super class players. If well managed, SE can compete with any of the European teams, so why should we feel that players who are not considered good enough for those teams are better than ours? Stephen Keshi and Chidi Nwanu were local boys who blossomed with the right exposure in Europe. Our other past heroes (Yekini, Okocha, Kanu, Amuneke, Taribo, Uche, Mikel, Oliseh, Amokachi) were all very much skilled locally, before maturing their skills with international exposures. Sometimes, really talented players may not get the luck or opportunity of finding suitable foreign clubs at the right time (eg Thompson Usiyen). The talents abound locally, and we need to tap in those. That we have won many U17 World cups is a testimony to this. With ex-Internationals like Finidi now starting to coach at the local league level, things can improve. From what I have seen of Ndah, he is naturally technically superior to the likes of Ekong and Balogun, and needs the chance to improve on his weak areas through the right exposure. Another potentially good CB is Valentine Ozornwafor. For various reasons, they may not immediately break into top European teams. Giving these guys a chance within the squads can only be the right investment on players who are solely invested in Nigeria. For the foreign groomed talents, I feel Calvin Bassey is good prospect, and should be encouraged (the chances are that he may have displaced Leon Balogun already from the Gers starting line up, yet Leon who has not played for over a month is selected ahead of him). Similarly, Ebuehi is maturing, and offers good options at the FB position.

A better organized NFF, resulting in a better managed SE, would also make SE more attractive to the really exciting eligible FB talents; to want to opt for Nigeria at the very early stage before they are selected by the foreign countries. There may still be a chance for Eze at Crystal Palace. There is also the Arsenal goalie; Arthur Okonkwo. At the moment we are only attracting those that are unable to cut it at the national level in their home countries, and it is somewhat disgusting that some us are tied to this idea that any foreign player that is top 5 league in Europe is automatically better than our home talent. It does not take much to put together an SE team to easily compete with and beat England routinely. Why should we applaud England and Germany rejects as better than ours? Please stop the misguided inferiority, take pride in our inherent talent.

I agree with most of your comments but I have my reservations as to why the academies cannot work with the NPFL clubs, so that the proceeds of player sales can bring in much needed revenue for clubs and reduce their reliance on government.
I believe the NPFL needs good marketing to thrive, many of the stadiums have been upgraded like Lekan Salami in Ibadan, Ogbe Stadium, Warri Stadium, Onikan in Lagos Enyimba stadium ABA, AM Stadium in PH etc, while the world class Uyo stadium is also in use. This is far better than what was on ground during the glory days of the Nigerian league.
The coaches also need to upgrade their knowledge and be exposed to the best coaching methods.

[Otitokoro]

Why should they? The NPFL teams offer zero value proposition to the academies.
First, they are not even close to having the deep pockets the European teams (even the tier 3 and 4 ones) have and will be willing to pay.
Secondly, as an academy owner, you don't have to deal with the bureaucracies of Govt run teams (which most NPFL teams are) and its inherent frustrations of getting paid. Think of the months you have to wait before being paid - meanwhile, you have the welfare of your academy support staff to take care of. Not only that, why get paid in Naira with NPFL teams when you can take advantage of the currency exchange with Euro's? No academy owner in his right mind would want to sell his prized prospects to any NPFL club. That is just very bad business sense.

Upgrade stadiums? I just got back from Naija this week and had the priviledge of seeing the MKO stadium in Abuja, Asaba stadium, Onikan stadium and Teslim Balogun stadiums. Absolutely disgraceful. I have seen High School stadiums here in the US that are 1000x better than those stadiums. There is NO decent infrastructure in Nigeria. None.

We really need to stop fooling ourselves and leverage what we have out there. Take advantage of our Academy bred players and our Foreign bred players. No need wasting our time with an NPFL program that is dying a slow death.

I agree with most of your comments but I have my reservations as to why the academies cannot work with the NPFL clubs, so that the proceeds of player sales can bring in much needed revenue for clubs and reduce their reliance on government.
I believe the NPFL needs good marketing to thrive, many of the stadiums have been upgraded like Lekan Salami in Ibadan, Ogbe Stadium, Warri Stadium, Onikan in Lagos Enyimba stadium ABA, AM Stadium in PH etc, while the world class Uyo stadium is also in use. This is far better than what was on ground during the glory days of the Nigerian league.
The coaches also need to upgrade their knowledge and be exposed to the best coaching methods.

[Sheikh]

Your argument would have made a lot of sense, if it wasn't off target.
The players you mentioned, specifically Ndidi, Osimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi and a host of others like Kalu, Simon, Onyeka, Dennis, Zaidu Sanusi and even Francis Uzoho did NOT play a single match in the NPFL. They were mostly poached from Academies. The so called 'talents that are abound' in Nigeria that you mention have all been monitored in their respective academies by foreign clubs, who have been very quick to poach them - that's where the likes of Kalu, et.al. came from. A foreign club will rightly rather invest in a young, Nigerian academy player who they know has financial growth potential THAN a so called NPFL player, who has very likely lied about his age and has hardly played structured football (which the academies are noted for).

The arguments for the inclusion of HB NPFL players is really unrealistic and very silly to me, as the fundamentals for it to thrive is non-existent (funding, infrastructure and viewership). Nobody cares to watch the NPFL, as the bulk of football fans (from young to old) would rather watch the European top leagues. This means it is impossible for HB players to develop and present a level of competition with those playing overseas. Many of the folks agitating for HB are either living in la-la land or drunk on nostalgia and seriously need to go back home and see the moribund state of affairs of things. I really don't see any hope for home based players. Those that have missed the Academy boat are done. The best they can hope for is a team on the continent in Africa, or some team in a East Asia.

Ndah could possess all the technical ability in the world - don't mean a hill of beans. You have to look at his marketability risk. Which big club out there would want to invest millions on a player that started out in Malta and ended up playing in the Nigerian league? Major red flag. Sadly, at 24, the best he can likely hope for is where he is now - SA.

Look, we Nigerians love to fool ourselves and hate to face reality. The path forward for our football growth and development is to harness two talent streams:
a. The young Nigerian Academy players (who now serve as the pipeline for our youth teams, which acts as a staging point for their next steps into Europe) AND
b. Our Foreign bred players (who want to play for their fatherland).

The path of NPFL players is a lost cause, for the simple reasons I provided earlier and will continue to get worse!.
That, is the unfortunate truth!

We should have some pride in valuing our home based players. Indded, our current best players honed their skills locally (Ndidi, Isimhen, Chukwueze, Kelechi etc). These are players are way above the best of our foreign grown players, and can easily be in the squads of the leading European national teams. The FB players we seem to consider superior are really players that are not and will not be considered remotely good enough for the European national teams (Ekong, Balogun, Lookman, Ejaria, even Iwobi). The really good eligible FB players simply do not consider Nigeria (Saka, Alaba, Ogbonna etc) Those that stand a chance to be selected in European teams are holding out (Eze, Adarabioyo, Danjuma, Tomori). Akpoguma had very good prospects to play for the German national team, but injuries and a loss of form have led to his exclusion, and he is currently not considered a key player at Hoffenheim. Why should there be such outcry about his not being selected? Please lets put things in perspective.

We also have many home groomed potentially super class players. If well managed, SE can compete with any of the European teams, so why should we feel that players who are not considered good enough for those teams are better than ours? Stephen Keshi and Chidi Nwanu were local boys who blossomed with the right exposure in Europe. Our other past heroes (Yekini, Okocha, Kanu, Amuneke, Taribo, Uche, Mikel, Oliseh, Amokachi) were all very much skilled locally, before maturing their skills with international exposures. Sometimes, really talented players may not get the luck or opportunity of finding suitable foreign clubs at the right time (eg Thompson Usiyen). The talents abound locally, and we need to tap in those. That we have won many U17 World cups is a testimony to this. With ex-Internationals like Finidi now starting to coach at the local league level, things can improve. From what I have seen of Ndah, he is naturally technically superior to the likes of Ekong and Balogun, and needs the chance to improve on his weak areas through the right exposure. Another potentially good CB is Valentine Ozornwafor. For various reasons, they may not immediately break into top European teams. Giving these guys a chance within the squads can only be the right investment on players who are solely invested in Nigeria. For the foreign groomed talents, I feel Calvin Bassey is good prospect, and should be encouraged (the chances are that he may have displaced Leon Balogun already from the Gers starting line up, yet Leon who has not played for over a month is selected ahead of him). Similarly, Ebuehi is maturing, and offers good options at the FB position.

A better organized NFF, resulting in a better managed SE, would also make SE more attractive to the really exciting eligible FB talents; to want to opt for Nigeria at the very early stage before they are selected by the foreign countries. There may still be a chance for Eze at Crystal Palace. There is also the Arsenal goalie; Arthur Okonkwo. At the moment we are only attracting those that are unable to cut it at the national level in their home countries, and it is somewhat disgusting that some us are tied to this idea that any foreign player that is top 5 league in Europe is automatically better than our home talent. It does not take much to put together an SE team to easily compete with and beat England routinely. Why should we applaud England and Germany rejects as better than ours? Please stop the misguided inferiority, take pride in our inherent talent.

You missed the point completely, my friend. Please no where in my comments did I refer to the NPFL. You then set off on a tangent of your own, referring to your invented "The arguments for the inclusion of HB NPFL players" as "really unrealistic and very silly". This is stupid. Please carefully read my comments. I was referring to players who honed their skills locally (not NPFL players), including Ndidi, Chukwueze etc

The NPFL is poorly run and funded, and unattractive to young talents that have options, and cannot be relied upon as an adequate filter for SE talent. But the key point is that our football talents abound locally, and we should be investing more in local talent at all levels and grades. We are not doing so now, and seem to be relying exclusively instead on foreign clubs to do so for us. As with even the most comprehensive and best meaning talent selection programs in any sphere of human endeavor, many technically gifted locally groomed players may for various reasons escape being picked at the right time by the quality foreign clubs. This should be an added reason to invest strongly in the local league, rather than abandon it and expect the foreign clubs to be the sole filter.

For example, the South American national teams (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) unfortunately increasingly took the path of relying on foreign clubs for their squads with greater intensity in the last 20 years. The players became richer (a good thing for them) but not surprisingly, as their football styles and tactics naturally became increasingly European, the last time a South American team won the world cup was in 2002! Also, in the 4 finals since 2002 only once (2014) has a South American team been involved! As at 2002, South American had won 9 out of the 17 Word cups held and no European had won final held outside Europe! Food for thought. Europeans are contemptuous of us, as we become increasingly solely dependent on their systems for our development. A case in point is the treatment of AFCON. They laugh at us; we glorify them! Please let's not affirm this by laughing at ourselves, but take more pride to realize and polish the gems we have.

[Otitokoro]

Sheikh,
Be that as it may, my point was a rebuttal to your overarching premise about HB being technically better than the FB ones.
I will posit that someone like Victor Moses, who most would argue was a very technical player for the SE, primarily honed his skills in the UK.
I think a lot of us are under the misguided belief that there is some 'significant advantage' we have with our players honing their skills at home (within Nigeria), playing 'monkey post' and 'set', for example, before graduating to high school and then principals cup and then the youth teams.
I have had the privilege of watching youngsters play football in Nigeria, America and in Europe and I can tell you for a fact that the HB youngsters are actually at a disadvantage. Why? In America or Europe, there are a lot of immigrants from Latin America, Eastern Europe and the rest of the world who those boys play youth football with, learn from and use to harness their skills. So those boys are exposed to a plethora of technical skills at a young age, something Nigerian youths don't (and will likely) never have that luxury.
Honestly, I really don't think there is ANY intrinsic benefit, whatsoever, to our youths honing their skills in Nigeria.

You missed the point completely, my friend. Please no where in my comments did I refer to the NPFL. You then set off on a tangent of your own, referring to your invented "The arguments for the inclusion of HB NPFL players" as "really unrealistic and very silly". This is stupid. Please carefully read my comments. I was referring to players who honed their skills locally (not NPFL players), including Ndidi, Chukwueze etc

The NPFL is poorly run and funded, and unattractive to young talents that have options, and cannot be relied upon as an adequate filter for SE talent. But the key point is that our football talents abound locally, and we should be investing more in local talent at all levels and grades. We are not doing so now, and seem to be relying exclusively instead on foreign clubs to do so for us. As with even the most comprehensive and best meaning talent selection programs in any sphere of human endeavor, many technically gifted locally groomed players may for various reasons escape being picked at the right time by the quality foreign clubs. This should be an added reason to invest strongly in the local league, rather than abandon it and expect the foreign clubs to be the sole filter.

For example, the South American national teams (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) unfortunately increasingly took the path of relying on foreign clubs for their squads with greater intensity in the last 20 years. The players became richer (a good thing for them) but not surprisingly, as their football styles and tactics naturally became increasingly European, the last time a South American team won the world cup was in 2002! Also, in the 4 finals since 2002 only once (2014) has a South American team been involved! As at 2002, South American had won 9 out of the 17 Word cups held and no European had won final held outside Europe! Food for thought. Europeans are contemptuous of us, as we become increasingly solely dependent on their systems for our development. A case in point is the treatment of AFCON. They laugh at us; we glorify them! Please let's not affirm this by laughing at ourselves, but take more pride to realize and polish the gems we have.