Chairman Brila Media, Dr Larry Izamoje has called on the Nigeria Football Federation to plot a direction for the national team after the Silver medal finish at the 2023 AFCON in Ivory Coast.
The aftermath of yesterday’s AFCON final loss has been a quite underwhelming affair across board. A lot of thoughts have been shared and reactions have been shown.
Dr Izamoje alluded that a viable strategist be engaged, as well as attracting more players from the diaspora to strengthen the team.
He said:
“If we must stick to the coach, we have to tell the coach to come up with different strategies. Different strategies. Thinking cap must change. A case where you just play one pattern throughout a competition. Is not good enough”.
“What did we play for this competition?. If we’re lucky we score you one, you cannot score. We saw people who could score twice and we could not do anything. We got tired, the transition was poor. So, the coach must come up with a thinking cap and slap people with surprises”.
“It’s not every team that Nigeria plays that we must line with five men. Five men at the back is meant to be used when we play a team that has a lot of strikers. Or when you’re trying to park the bus after scoring one or two goals. People should be able to look at all the factors and talk to the coach. The coach as well should be able to listen and trust people that are talking to him. Jose Mourinho once said he goes to every game with seven different strategies, there’s a time to use a particular formation”.
“Your bench is also key when you go to tournaments. Look at Man City, if it’s not Doku, it’s Grealish. If it’s not Gvardiol, it’s Akanji. Our bench has to be very rich. You look at Ivory Coast bench, Krasso, Boga. We must convince more nigerian born players to play for the super eagles of Nigeria”.
“So, we need a coach that wants to go to war. Convince more nigerian born players to play for us. If we can convince Lookman, why not Eberechi Eze. Osimhen alone can not do it. We were looking for goalkeepers, thank God for Nwabili.
If this coach does not give us three or four patterns, he should go. I want to see flexibility and creativity in tactical approach”.
