The Nigerian Football Federation has asked Eagles’ Manager Amodu Shuaibu to fly to Italy to try to persuade Angelo Ogbonna Obinze to pledge his international future to Nigeria.
Obinze is 20, plays left-back, centre-back and defensive-midfield, versatility that could prove useful to a manager facing an injury crisis, or put in a position where he must make forced substitutions. Obinze is eligible to play for Nigeria or Italy. I do not think he has represented Italy at the youth level; and if he has, he is allowed to switch his allegiance once until his 21st birthday this May. We have nothing to lose and a lot to potentially gain by convincing Obinze to commit to the Eagles.
We do not have to “cap” Obinze to tie him to the Eagles. According to FIFA’s statutes, a player wishing to switch nationality need only officially communicate this decision to the appropriate FIFA committee. The committee evaluates his declaration to ensure he is still eligible (i.e. before 21st birthday, and possessed both citizenships from the start), and then approves (or not). I do not think Obinze has played for Italy at the youth level, so we have no FIFA hoops to jump through. He need only pledge his future to Nigeria, and we are good to go.
Uwa Elderson Echiejile (Junior Eagles, Canada’07), Chibuzor Okonkwo (Olympic Eagles, Beijing’08) and Matthew Edile (Eaglets, Togo’07, Korea’07, Junior Eagles, Rwanda’09) featured for our youth teams at left-back in recent years. Like Obinze, they are young players, and it is anyone’s guess which one will be the second-best Nigerian left-back when they are all in their mid-20s. Obinze (Serie A) and Echiejile (Ligue 1) are playing at a higher level than the other two, but the Eagles currently have no substantive back-up for Taiye Taiwo (and his accurate cannon of a shot might be a bigger goal threat if he was playing in the midfield, where he ends up most of the time anyway).
Except for truly exceptional super-talents, it is difficult to tell which cadet footballers will become superstars, which ones will become solid-but-otherwise-average professionals, and which one will fail to make it to the professional ranks. Humans mature physically at different rates, and the x-factor of footballing talent also matures at different rates; dominating youth-level ball with physicality and/or raw talent does not guarantee the advantage will be retained at the senior level. Unscrupulous agents, desperate players and negligent law-enforcement add off-the-field issues to consider when pondering the career trajectory of cadet players. Ultimately, no one can claim to know which cadet will be the best at his field position several years in the future. We cannot even pretend to know when we will need to rest or retire players who currently occupy senior national team positions.
To ensure the highest probability of having 22 high-quality players for the Eagles to call on, Nigeria must have access to the widest possible pool of POTENTIAL talent. Contrary to myth, we are not so “abundantly blessed with talent” that we do not need to widen our nets to catch more fish. I have the utmost respect for every player who has donned the Eagles’ jersey – I wish I was good enough – but the truth is we have had quite a few “average” players in our national team. It is one of the most important reasons for our continuous fifteen-year decline since 1994; good players retired or lost form year-after-year, and there was no one of comparable quality to replace them.
Nigeria-born talent is the rock on which football and wider sporting glory must be built. The majority of our citizenry is Nigeria-based, and we will not know true sporting success until our domestic talent-development institutions produce sprinters who can beat the Americans and Caribbeans to Olympic gold, to use one example. We have no top tennis players and are absent from the upper ranks of most sports other than football – and we now outsource the development of our best young Nigeria-born footballers to European clubs, applauding as they leave our shores at ever-younger ages.
We must nevertheless expand our nets to draw in the best Diaspora-born athletes. These sportsmen and women have dual citizenship, and could choose to represent their “other” country. It is our job to do everything in our power to convince them to choose Nigeria. Francis Obikwelu was Nigeria-born, but we let him go, and he went on to win an Olympic silver medal for Portugal; he is a reminder that it is foolish to let good people go, on the false, self-deluding assumption that we have so much talent we will never need them. A related idea, that we are too big to “beg” anybody, must also be discarded. Attracting the best Nigeria-eligible athletes is not about “begging” anyone, but about creating an attractive environment for both Nigeria-born and Diaspora-born sportsmen, giving them the best chance to win for themselves, and for Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian Football Federation is engaged in the usual rudimentary, ad hoc, unplanned, disorganized, “fire brigade” activity. Someone, somewhere learned of Obinze (probably by watching Supersport one weekend), and subsequently the NFF orders the Eagles’ manager to go convince one specific player to pledge for Nigeria.
This random approach will never achieve optimal results. We must be systemic and holistic, not random and ad hoc. Rather than chase a single player, as if he was the messiah, we should set up a continuous programme with dedicated staff to spread our nets and capture as many Diaspora-born potentials as we can convince to make the commitment.
Do not misunderstand me. Diaspora-born players are NOT inherently better than their Nigeria-born counterparts, the best of them can be more suited to the playing style of their “other” country than they are to Nigeria (e.g. Gabriel Agbonlahor), and Nigeria-born players will remain the principal source of the national team’s talent pool. Half-hearted, unserious efforts to woo Diaspora-born players like Patrick Owomoyela, Dennis Aogo, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Chinedu Ede came to naught (I am still trying to forget the opportunists Alen Orman and Michael Lamey). Of these players, Aogo is probably the only real loss, and only because he’d have made a good back-up for Taiwo.
We did not have to do any work to win the allegiance of the dual citizens who opted for Nigeria, men like Osaze Odemwingie, Efan Ekoku, George Abbey, Victor Anichebe and Reuben Agboola. Significantly, this list includes players who spent some or all of their childhood or youth in Nigeria. It also includes players who would not have made it onto the roster of their “other” country. And it includes Osaze Odemwingie, a talented, intelligent, hard-worker under-rated by managers and fans, and played out of position. Odemwingie won his first senior cap at age 23, having never played for any of our youth teams; none of our youth team managers thought he would grow up to become a senior team mainstay, which is the crux of my point. We can afford to “wait and see” with Nigeria-born players, but with dual citizens, by the time we discover we really need a particular player, it may be too late.
Some Nigerian Diaspora parents feel a sense of achievement related to their kids being more American than the Americans or more British than the British. Self-consciously they insist it is impossible to raise a Diaspora child to consider himself or herself a Nigerian (which is not true). It would be difficult to convince a young athlete with a background like this to choose Nigeria unless he or she had no chance at the other countries’ team.
There are also many Nigerian parents abroad who do teach their children about their Nigerian heritage. These parents would be immensely proud to see their child win a major event in the colours of their homeland. All Nigerian men grow up idolizing the Eagles, wishing we could be good enough to play in the Eagles’ jersey. These men become fathers who could help us persuade their talented sons to make themselves available for Eagles’ selection. All parties should understand that being available for selection does not mean guaranteed selection, starting shirt, or place on the bench.
It would take time (and resources) to set up a programme designed to draw as many Diaspora-born athletes, in every sport not just football, to the Nigerian flag. For the time being, the Nigerian Football Federation should expand the “invitation” beyond Obinze.
19-year-old Stefano Chuka Okaka is a big man with excellent technique. He can play with his back to goal, hold up the ball, keep possession and set up team-mates (the role Kanu holds today) and can make powerful runs taking the ball from midfield to the 18-yard box (as Yekini and Amokachi did). At age 16 he debuted in the UEFA Cup for Roma, an Italian record, and scored his first goal against Napoli in the Coppa.
18-year-old Funso Ojo has cracked the first team squad at PSV Eindhoven. He can play anywhere in the midfield or on the defence line. Call me a biased fan, but I think any player has a better chance of winning international trophies with the Eagles than with Belgium, so he may be easier to convince than Stefano Okaka.
22-year-old goalkeeper Carl Ikeme of Wolverhampton Wanderers fought his way to the starting assignment before injury struck. The English “Championship” is really the second division, but is arguably stronger than the French second division where Austin Ejide is second-choice (behind Magno Novaes) at SC Bastia, and is definitely stronger than the Israeli first division where Vincent Enyeama starts for Hapoel Tel Aviv. I am NOT saying Ikeme is a better keeper than Ejide or Enyeama; the Eagles’ current numbers one and two are the “standard” and I suggest only that Ikeme meets the standard. Wolves are favourites to win automatic promotion to the Premier League (Bastia is mid-table), and Wayne Hennessy (a future England international and Ikeme’s competition) is likely to be sold to a bigger club.
We have quite a few promising Nigeria-born players coming through the ranks or in the team right now. John Micheal “Mikel” Obi’s was impressive for Chelsea in the away leg against Juventus in the UEFA Champions League. Taiye Taiwo would have it at least to the bench of either of the great Eagles teams (late-70s-to-1980, and 1988-to-2000), and Joseph Yobo is solid. I expect big things from Rabiu Ibrahim and Solomon Okoronkwo.
But we must make sure our “pool” is an ocean, and draw in as many Nigeria-eligible players as possible.
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