With three days left until the start of AFCON 2021, few Nigerians expect the Super Eagles not to reach the last place in the championship. Such high expectations are justified.
Nigeria has been one of the most consistently successful countries in the history of AFCON since it began participating in Africa’s most prestigious football championship in 1963.
A quick look at the statistics of the country’s performance, especially since 1976 up to the present day, explains why the Super Eagles are always considered by many impartial experts to be among the favorites to win, despite all the katakata (crises) that often surround the team, especially despite the team’s poor response to the technical content of a team so close to the championship as in this case.
This seemingly lofty position was first achieved in the field of performance in 1976. In Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, the Green Eagles have fully ascended to the pinnacle of African football. Elisavic Tito, coach of the Nigerian national team and Yugoslav soccer teacher and coach, assembled a team of talented players for different positions on the field, giving them the freedom to express themselves and reach their true potential. He gave them a simple overall team strategy: attack, attack, and break through the wings. He did not try to complicate matters with patterns and systems that could not be learned on the poor grounds of Nigerian domestic football.
Players who had the chance to play for the national team because established stars refused to accept invitations to national camps and held the country to ransom, seized the opportunity, determined to hold on to their positions, and played as if possessed by a spirit. They followed Father Tico’s strict but simple instructions and began to sparkle. These unknown talents quickly became the toast of African football.
The 1976 Championship saw the discovery of two of the best wingers on the left and right sides of the continent’s attack in Kunle Awesu and Baba Otu Mohammed.
One of Nigeria’s great midfielders, Mudasir Lawal has risen to the top of African football’s profile. Thompson Uthien’s talent blossomed brilliantly.
It was in 1976 that Nigeria’s true football identity was carved out and exhibited for the first time in Africa. This was the first step towards properly developing a style of Nigerian football that builds on the natural skills and abilities of the players and makes the most of them without complex technical or tactical instructions.
Throughout the 1970s, Nigeria’s on-field football system was not well organized. It’s probably not because the country didn’t have enough ground for consistent training and rehearsal.
So Father Tico identified natural talent at every position on the field and had his players play according to their strengths.
At the end of that championship, Nigeria, with no previous record of accomplishments, had established a unique physical style that combined individual expression, speed and one-way play, constantly coming forward and relentlessly attacking the opposition defence. The team didn’t have time for endless passes of the ball behind and to the sides.
The style has taken Africa by storm. Only the organized play of the North African team can decipher it and neutralize its influence.
The team placed third in the 1976 AFCON. They had the talent to win a championship if their organization and tactical discipline improved a bit.
1978 only reinforced the “discoveries” of 1976. Tico did not change his style. He made his players learn it. His methodical defensive strategy was to use strong, hard defenders to neutralize opponents. His team spent most of its time launching wave attacks, primarily attacking the flanks.
When it went well, it often resulted in great goals and was a lot of fun to watch. The team had a chance to win the 1978 AFCON, but a lack of tactical depth at a crucial moment in the quarterfinal group game narrowly cost them the title. The Green Eagles advanced to the semifinals.
The speed of play and the use of open space behind the defence, became the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ hallmark of Nigerian football. The “beauty” is the team’s offensive flair with almost “reckless” abandon, and the “beast” is the flaws in the entire defensive organization.
In 1980, the country won by reinforcing the team’s strengths with a new South American flair and flamboyance, maintaining the established and simple strategy and style, and making the most of both by playing on home soil, despite the team’s known weaknesses.
It would have been a huge setback if the team didn’t win. It was three months of training and matches on the green fields of Brazil that led to further transformation, learning lessons from the many defeats of matches against Brazilian teams and using them as a stepping stone to greater heights. That transition laid the groundwork for Nigeria’s most successful era, making them a formidable force in world football today and a team that can only be taken for granted for teams looking to beat. On a good day, the Eagles can beat any team on the planet.
During the decade of the 1980s, the team reached the finals three times, always with difficult opponents to play against, and always on the brink of success.
In the 1990s, despite the turmoil caused by conflicts in football administration and political interference in football affairs, Nigeria rose to the top with its most glorious victory in the 1994 AFCON and playing as the best of Nigeria’s new brand of football.
Two years later, they were at the bottom of the table, but this was a product of political interference. The country foolishly withdrew from the 1996 championship they could have won, and as a result were banned from the next championship in 1998. The seppuku that began affected three subsequent editions in the 2000s, and the established structure of the team was destroyed.
The country was never able to get back on its feet again. The Nigerian-led nation won the 2013 edition amid repeated crises in Nigeria’s football administration. Since then, the country’s football has been struggling, for better or for worse, through the AFCON and up to the present, due to foreign coaches who have introduced all sorts of styles into the team that are not based on the fundamental principles of Nigerian football.
In Egypt, the team reached the semi-finals of the 2019 AFCON but was hardly distinguishable from the free-flowing, all-attacking teams that are the culture of Nigerian football. Since then, the national team has mainly been influenced by players plucked from European clubs without proper background in Nigerian football.
With a foreign coach from Europe and players who grew up on the foundations of European soccer trying to play in Africa, the team increasingly feels like it is at a loss. The team was neither here nor there.
This is the setting for AFCON 2021, which starts in three days.
No one knows what will happen.
An interim Nigerian coach has been appointed at short notice, leaving foreign coaches who are no longer involved in Nigerian football hanging on their necks, waiting to take over regardless of the outcome of the championship.
For Augustin Eguavoen, it’s the perfect environment, even if he fails.
The players, who are mostly “foreign-based,” have limited time to absorb the culture and spirit of Nigerian football.
Nevertheless, he must not fail.
What is certain on the eve of the championship is that, as is customary and knowing the Super Eagles’ rightful place in African football, the Eagles will be in last place no matter what the circumstances, stretching to take the tape to their chests in a ‘photo finish’.
Will the Super Eagles win? Will they be able to win?
The answer is blowing in the wind.
Good luck Super Eagles.
