Oliseh’s response, however, revealed three issues. One: The frustrations and limitations imposed on both himself and his team by the authorities. He spoke of lack of adequate support, leading to the usual Nigerian fire-brigade approach as we prepare for major sporting events; and the tardiness in meeting obligations such as the payment of salaries, match bonuses, and other entitlements, which, expectedly, affected the morale of everyone down the line. Two: The Oliseh response also revealed his surprise at the impatience of Nigerians and their lack of appreciation for what Oliseh considers as his impressive performance so far as the national coach. He has not performed badly, he said, and rather than anyone calling for his head or the NFF mulling alternatives, he (Oliseh) should have been saluted and further encouraged. He could be right, although on the first issue of the NFF shirking of its responsibilities, the coach had been forced to recant, which is usually how it has always been done here. There is hardly any Nigerian coach that had complained like Oliseh did who was not eventually forced to eat the humble pie by the Football authorities. On the other issue of the critics’ impatience, Oliseh was both right and wrong; right, because he truly needs more time to put together a winning team from the rag-tag “army” bequeathed unto him; wrong, because he ought to know, as an ex-international and, I suppose, a keen football watcher, that few gaffes ever get all the time in the world to produce a winning team. Impatience is the name of the game everywhere and coaches have to race against time. Three: Success today, failure tomorrow is counted as failure in football’s queer way of conducting its activities. It equals the biblical standard of salvation when God stated that if a righteous man leaves his righteousness and falls into sin and dies in his sin, the good that he has done is forgotten and only the evil is remembered; he goes to Hell. But if a sinner forsakes his sins and embraces righteousness and dies a righteous man, then, his sins are no longer remembered and only the good deeds will be remembered; he goes to Paradise. Sounds hard and harsh; but that is the way it is. In soccer, successes are no longer remembered once failure sets in; in soccer, perhaps more than any other sports, failure appears intolerable, even for a season. Oliseh should have known that.
Three issues again and we close. One: Oliseh’s tempers or human relationship abilities. Two: His requisite experience as a coach at a summit such as the Super Eagles’. Three: His technical understanding and professional knowledge of the round-leather game. We all knew Oliseh’s fiery tempers before we decided to make our bed with him. Either we thought age had tempered him or responsibilities would clip his wings. We took a calculated risk, I suppose, or, as usual, we trivialised facts and acted on sentiments. We have to live with the choice that we made. As William Shakespeare admonished, what cannot be changed will have to be excused or endured. We have to continue to speak with, and manage, Oliseh on that score. That Oliseh never coached a national team or big European club before we threw the Super Eagles’ job at him was well known to everyone. Chief Festus Onigbinde cried himself hoarse on that issue. Since we nevertheless preferred Oliseh to his betters on that score, we have to give him enough time to mature on the job. I will be modest and give him five years; after which I will return to judge him. I hope he will still be on his seat by that time! There is no denying the fact that we all believe that Oliseh was an exceptional professional football player. He was one player I loved to watch in those great days of Nigerian football. No Nigerian will forget Oliseh’s volley of a goal that qualifies as a master-piece anywhere, any day. So, he is eminently qualified on that score. He has a drawback, though, which everyone must not trivialise: The quality of footballers in the Nigeria team as of now leaves much to be desired. The reasons why this is so should be a discussion for another day. This lack of quality cannot but negatively reflect on the Super Eagles’ performance until we are lucky enough (better still, after we have worked really hard at it) to have an array of stars as in the days of yore. Zinedine Zidane, the new coach of Real Madrid, said recently that he needed not give his players more than one or two instructions during matches because they are all professionals and know what to do; until we get to that threshold, it will be unrealistic to expect miracles from our own national team coaches. Therefore, the people who spoke to some people to let Oliseh be rather than sack him and start another wild goose chase have done well. The fault, O Caesar (Nigerians), is not in our stars (Oliseh) but in us!
