Samson Siasia Becomes Super Eagles' New Coach

Pin It Now! The Nigeria Football federation has finally appointed Samson Siasia as the Coach of the Super Eagles. He was appointed after series of debate as to who was better between himself and his former team mate Stephen Okechukwu Keshi.

The two candidates that eventually became the preferred ones for the job of coaching the national team were both members of the 1994 African Nations’ Cup winning team and the USA ’94 World Cup, with Stephen Keshi as the captain of the team.

The emergence of Samson Siasia is good news to so many soccer pundits in the country as so many people had actually been clamouring for him to be appointed head coach following the Super Eagles’ abysmal performances in the past 10 years. The fortunes of the team began to dwindle since 1998 World Cup in France where they lost by a scandalous 4-1 to Denmark in the 2nd round of the tournament.

Since France ’98 the team has had over 8 coaches – Bora Milutinovic, Bonfere Jo, Shuaibu Amodu, Festus Onigbinde, Christian Chukwu, Austine Eguavoen, Berti Vogts, Las Lagerbach, etc. The fortunes of the team have not improved much as none of the coaches had been able to make Nigeria win the Africa Nations’ Cup Gold trophy ever since their last one in Tunisia ’94.

Nigeria is blessed with array of soccer talents; unfortunately, indiscipline, internal squabbles and lack of commitments have made it impossible for the team to achieve much in the past decade. With the emergence of Siasia as the new coach, it is hoped that this problem would be addressed as he is known to be a strict disciplinarian.

Besides, Siasia has the charisma to move the players into giving their best for the country. He was able to achieve success in the 2005 World Youth Championship in the Netherlands with an U-20 team that was made up of mainly home based players. We also saw the commitment put in by the 2008 Beijing Olympic team players under him.

We hope that when the contract is finally wrapped up, either the NFF or Coach Siasia himself should be able to choose an assistant that would work effectively and harmoniously with him to advance the Nigerian football to the next level. Stephen Keshi has said that he’s willing to work with him in the interest of the Nigerian football.

We wish he is able to bring back the discipline, team spirit and commitment needed for the success of the team. He should also not fail to inject fresh legs into the team and make invitations into the team competitive. Once he is able to bring in these basic ingredients, he is bound to succeed more than the previous coaches that have handled the Super Eagles.

Samson Siasia Becomes Super Eagles' New Coach