By SANUSI LATEEF
Few weeks ago, I started my column with a piece titled “A little peep into what to expect”.
In that piece I noted that my next column will be titled “Finidi George the 5th of 5” and that is what I have brought for you this week.
Now, the question is; which 5th of 5 is Finidi George?
Between 1989 and 1994 the former Coach of the Super Eagles Clemens Westerhof was able to raise a Super Eagles team that won the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), qualified Nigeria for her first ever World Cup, became the 5th best national team in the world and a team that had players that dominated the crown of African Footballer of the year at some point.
That team today is being referred to by many as the golden generation of Nigerian football.
Thus, in the last couple of years that team has produced nothing less than five (5) Coaches of the Super Eagles, each having different level of performance and success.
These five include Stephen Keshi, Augustine Eguavoen, Samson Siasia, Sunday Oliseh and Finidi George.
Some were appointed in full time capacity, others in interim capacity.
The most successful of them all is Stephen Okechukwu Keshi.
Keshi won AFCON for Nigeria after a 19-year wait and qualified the team for the world cup.
He then set a record in African football by being the first African coach to qualify two African nations (Nigeria and Togo) for the World Cup Finals in 2005 and in 2013.
At the 2014 world cup under Keshi the Super Eagles lost to France in the first knock-out round.
Augustine Eguavoen has had different stints as an interim Coach of the Super Eagles, the best of his performances was when he was appointed as the caretaker coach in June 2005 and managed the Super Eagles at the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, where the team won a bronze medal, beating Senegal in the third-place.
He was sacked in April 2006.
Samson Siasia has not had it good as the Coach of the Super Eagles which he has done in interim capacity at different times.
On one of such occasions; on November 4, 2010, he was named as the national team coach to succeed Swedish Lars Lagerbäck.
He was fired on October 28, 2011 for failing to take the Nigeria team to the 2012 African Cup of Nations in Gabon & Equatorial Guinea.
Sunday Oliseh in his own case, between 2015 –16, was appointed by the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) as the National Team Chief Coach during which he had a statistics of; 14 Games with only 2 losses, 19 Goals scored and 6 conceded.
He resigned as the Super Eagles coach at about 2:28am on February 26 2016, exactly a month to the team’s encounter with the Pharaohs of Egypt in the AFCON qualifiers.
Now the 5th of 5 of them, Finidi George, was appointed as the Head Coach of the Super Eagles about two months.
After two matches in-charge as the Head Coach and considering the fact that he was also in-charge of two matches in Interim capacity, Finidi looks like the one with the worst results.
In Interim capacity he lost one and won one game, both friendly matches, while in substantive capacity he has won none, drawing a game at home against South Africa and losing the other away against Benin Republic in World Cup qualifiers.
On Thursday June 13th, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) after its Executive Board meeting said it will employ a foreign Technical Adviser to take charge of the team in the coming weeks.
Following this decision of the NFF, Finidi resigned his appointment as the Coach of the Super Eagles.
With this, Finidi end up being the one with the shortest reign as the Super Eagles coach among the Class of ’94.
So, is the 5th of the 5, the worst of the 5?
Thus, is this the end of the era of Class ’94 of the Super Eagles, as the Coach of the Super Eagles?
These are questions that will be debated in the course of time.
Thanks for your time, thanks for reading.
Till another week, it’s bye for now.
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