In football when a team performs badly, one person who takes a good chunk of the blame or criticism is the coach. Likewise, when the team performs well much of the praises and accolades goes to the coach.
One coach who is currently receiving much recognition and accolades at the moment is interim coach of the Super Eagles of Nigeria Augustine Cerezo Eguavoen.
Nigeria is having one of its best performances at the TotalEnergies AFCON currently ongoing in Cameroon. The Super Eagles were able to pick maximum points in their group with three wins out of three matches.
Not only did they win all their group matches, but there has also been a significant improvement in the team’s style of play. Only a few weeks under the tutelage of Eguavoen the Super Eagles are looking like world-beaters once more.
Before the commencement of the tournament, a lot of Nigerians criticized the decision to let Gernot Rohr go and replace him with an indigenous coach on such short notice, but Eguavoen has made them eat back their words.
He became the only manager to win all group stage matches for Nigeria at the AFCON, a feat which he also achieved in 2006. His recent achievement also put him in the spotlight which made popular micro-blogging body Twitter verify his account on their platform.
To top it all, CAF also recognized him by awarding him the best coach in the tournament so far.
Eguavoen’s recent achievement has shown why we need to put more faith in our indigenous coaches instead of paying millions of dollars to foreign managers who eventually fail to add any positive input to the national team.
He also makes a case for ex-internationals and why they should be given more responsibilities in matters surrounding Nigerian football. The likes of Stephen Keshi, Emmanuel Amunike have shown that if given the opportunity they can do a good job with our football.
It is high time we give indigenous coaches and ex-internationals the benefit of the doubt both on the pitch and on the administration level.