Sunday Oliseh Vs Stephen Keshi – Battle for Super Eagles Coaching Job

Who Might be the best coach for Super Eagles?

Stephen Keshi and Sunday Oliseh find themselves trading words on   who is best to be the next coach of Nigeria national team – but the contest isn’t only being played out between them. Incidentally, the two coaches were ex-captains of Super Eagles.

Flying Eagles Coach Manu Garba might be warming up at the sideline. If he does well in the World Youth Championship in 2015, then he may stand a chance to become the next Super Eagles coach.

Samson Siasia is another coach poise to come back after he was sacked in 2011 for failing to qualify Nigeria for the nation’s cup. He is on track and if he wins gold medal in 2016 Olympics, then he could he ask to graduate with the Under 23 boys to the national team.

NFF technical Committee have their pending decision to hire a foreign coach – don’t think it have been swept under the carpet. Although, it might not be feasible now, since there will be general elections in 2015. The funds might not be available to engage a quality foreign coach.

But we all know President Goodluck Jonathan would rather favor the employment of indigenous coaches, which may favor the retention of Keshi.

The question is, can Keshi take Super Eagles to the next level? For sure, Keshi cannot win the world cup, so then, what will be the new level? It will be to win more of African cup of nations.  But oliseh seems to challenge that fact, since Keshi failed to qualify the team for Equatorial Guinea 2015.

The nature of the job is ‘winner takes all!’ But when you fail to win, you must also step aside for another coach to take over – which means Keshi should resign from the position right away. He can’t eat his cake and have it.

 Oliseh insisted that he has better coaching qualifications than Keshi and he could rank favorably with most world class coaches round the world. But some commentators have blast back at him.  It is more than paper qualifications; Oliseh doesn’t have the requisite experience to tinker a national team as big as Super Eagles.

Oliseh is still seen as the ‘black Sheep,’ since his active days as captain of the national team. Many in NFF office believe he has attitude problem. His strong vocal expressions and high mindedness, so to say, may not be the kind of character required for the coaching job.

As it is now, NFF may retain Keshi and offer him a short contract of about 2 years, with eyes on Manu Garba or Samson Siasia or they can outrightly go for a foreign coach. But doesn’t Oliseh deserve a Chance? Let’s watch and see how it plays out in the following weeks.