We have never had it so bad, argues JOSHUA J. OMOJUWA
The mathematics has not solved into that inevitability yet, but the reality is unavoidable; Nigeria will miss out on back-to-back FIFA World Cup appearances for the first time since 1990. In 35 years, the worst we ever had it until this year was to miss out on a World Cup and then return for the next one after that. We missed out on the Qatar World Cup on what you could put down to a goalkeeping error even though we didn’t lose to Ghana. Under a different football rule, we’d have had to play extra time after 1-1 over two legs. When we missed out on the 2006 World Cup and handed a pathway to Angola, a gift I am certain that country will never forget, it was down to head-to-head rules. Based on conventional football norms, having finished on the same number of points and a better goal difference, we would have qualified for that World Cup. It is hard to know where to start when it comes to the latest World Cup qualifiers.
2025 is the first time in about two generations that we are not only not going to qualify for the World Cup, but we were also never in with a chance. We started out with no win in four matches. That improved to two in eight. We’d be lucky to finish second in a group comprising African football giants like Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Benin and South Africa. In eight matches against these teams, we could only win twice. If you consider the results and the entire context, this could be the worst ever qualification series Nigeria has ever had to endure since we started playing qualifiers for the World Cup. Most certainly since the 1980s. Except the Super Eagles exit at the group stage of the next African Cup of Nations, you could say they are not going to fly lower than they currently are doing. They are anything but a flying bird right now, let alone an eagle.
We had it much better, even recently. Gernot Rohr qualified us for the 2018 World Cup with matches to spare, even after FIFA handed Algeria a game and three goals, not to mention there was also Cameroon in that group. Algeria had Riyad Mahrez at the peak of his game. We qualified for AFCON tournaments with matches to spare. Rohr was deemed stale and boring, then he got sacked. The same Rohr is using Benin Republic to challenge South Africa for the ticket in our group and could end up finishing ahead of Nigeria. Sacking Rohr was not as bad a decision as the people that have held the helm since he left. Not even one of them steps up to him, whether based on pedigree or results. They could have fired Rohr and then hired a coach with a better profile than the German. They dug lower than what was already a basic level.
They sought out a Jose whose closest affinity to coaching excellence is that he was friends with Mourinho, answered his first name and shared his nationality. Peseiro has since gone from Venezuela to scoring an unbelievable hiring with Nigeria and now with Zamalek. When they leave the Super Eagles, where they go and what they do is always a good indication of their real level, because Nigeria will always hire below its level.
The last time Nigeria played at the FIFA World Cup was seven years ago and even if we make it to the 2030 edition, we’d have been 12 years away from football’s ultimate stage. You cannot take it for granted that Nigeria will even make that 2030 edition, you only need to realise that we are missing out of a World Cup that will have almost one quarter of the world’s countries and about a fifth of African countries in it. It just looked harder to not qualify than to qualify. We managed to pull off the unlikelier event, even when we had those countries to play.
We lost it as much on the field as we did in the boardroom. Nigeria signed up to a contest where South Africa did not just have Zimbabwe and Lesotho as group contenders, we also agreed for both countries to play their home matches in South Africa. That has left South Africa with the extra advantage of playing more matches at home than everyone else in the group.
If that was it, it’d still be such a poor showing on our part, but it got worse. South Africa fielded an ineligible player against Lesotho. Lesotho, for not obvious reasons, decided not to take the matter up with FIFA. Nigeria did not notice this infringement until the time permitted for a report had passed. We also did not bother about putting some pressure on FIFA to take another look at a country breaking its rules.
When we were not dropping points on the pitch, we were dropping the ball in the boardroom, so now we have proven that we can’t play football, and we can’t make a point for ourselves when necessary. This is the worst state I have ever seen the Super Eagles in. We clearly need a rebuild and Eric Chelle does not have the wherewithal to do that. I do not know him personally and I have nothing against him, he has in fact done better than the two other coaches that managed the Super Eagles through this disaster of a qualification process, Jose Peseiro and George Finidi, but whilst better than them, he is not good enough for us. We can of course wait till the AFCON in Morocco to find out.
We used to have a team of Super Eagles, now we know they are anything but. We aren’t lacking in good enough players, Tunisia just qualified and they don’t have better players. South Africa and Benin in our group do not have better players. But we are who we are.
Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing
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