Gate crashing and the Pressure of Always Having Uninvited Players in U17 and U21 Nigeria National Team Camp

 

Whether the coaches like it or not, It is something they will have to deal with; uninvited guess at their training ground or camp every other day. 

A call from an army general or a top politician; a letter from top NFF official or a top staff from ministry of sports... brings another ten or hundred new players who show up at the training ground in the next day... player's agents, family members, touts waggling ways to get their wards into the U17 or U21 national teams is actually getting out of hand.

A lot of money exchange hands and coaches are pressured to compromise standards, and may even decamp better players just to accommodated the ones imposed on them. If they don't  they may loose their job and their position of being a national team coach. So, integrity is compromised.

Don't get me wrong, but most of these coaches seems to enjoy the gratifications they receive in large sum of Naira, dollars or euros passed to them. The gifts of cars, electronics, technological gadgets delivered to them through the back door.

The price paid to come or remain in the national team is getting even higher as young Nigerian living abroad come into the fray with pounds, euros and dollars, the local boys can no longer match them in giving out gratifications.

We have seen this play out over the years as this syndrome continue to degrade the formidability of our National teams. For instance in assembling the 1997 flying eagles, many of the established senior national team players forced their younger wards on the Coach . And in that team we had Azubuike Oliseh, Sunday Babayaro, Ogbonna Kanu, Kingsley Amunike, Johnson Oruma. And the result was they crash out of U21 Afcon. beaten by Sudan in a very painful  way.

We may be seeing the same mistake with the recent flying eagles of 2023. While Ladan Bosso has assembled what you may call a delightful team, making late changes with six foreign based players and decamping some players that did so well in WAFU raises an eye brow.