Akeem Lasisi
Whether by accident or design, Nigeria has largely returned to an old pattern of play as far as the Super Eagles’ campaign at the ongoing African Cup of Nations is concerned.
That pattern is what football modernists had declared as outdated: playing strategically in and from the wings.
Gone were the days when the like of Segun Odegbami, Finidi George, Felix Owolabi, Friday Elaho and Emmanuel Amuneke brought life, pace and character into the Eagles. Gone were the days – at least until we began to see a semblance of fortified and inspiring ‘outside right’, ‘outside left’ activation from the Gernot Rohr boys in Egypt.
Many contemporary soccer analysts, including feudalist critics and other writers, insist that, in modern football, there is no temperament for the kind of style the old Eagles played. Even when some of us uneducated and unsophisticated observers said there was no time FIFA sat down and decreed that you must clip your wings, they said ‘Forget, football has moved!’
But the goal of this ranting is not about whether or not football still has space for wing-based mobilisation. It is about what is missing in the brand that Rohr is exuding now. Apart from bringing beauty to the old Eagles, the wingers inspired results by crossing the ball into the goal area at vital moments. As with the 1994 generation, this became very effective when you had born scorers such as Rashidi Yekini and Muti Adepoju. The latter is more important to this article because of the way he used his head to crown the havoc the wingers’ crossings constituted to the opponents. Simply put, Rohr needs a good header, the kind of the Headmaster that Adepoju was in those good resurrecting days.
Does the Eagles have anyone like that for tonight’s match? I doubt so, but believe the coach must do something about it. The question on your mind is relevant: Can one manufacture a Headmaster overnight? Ask the coach!
