Argentina remains the most successful team in the history of the FIFA U-20 World Youth Championship with six titles in the kitty and most of these title wins were down to the effort of Coach Jose Pekerman, who led the South American team to three victories after which he was drafted to the senior national team but was a big flop. Just as Samson Siasia, whom after leading Nigeria to the finals of the U-20 WYC in 2005 and the final of the football event of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the eggheads of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, felt he was due for big job of coaching the senior national team. The result was that he failed to qualify the team to 2012 Africa Cup of Nations jointly hosted by Gobon and Equatorial Guinea, making it the first time Nigeria was absent from the biennial competition in 25 years. Now back in the U-23 team and slowly building the team to be a formidable gang, Kunle Adewale in this report asks if the former international is just a perfect coach for the junior team or like Pekerman, he is just not a coach for the highest level of football?
After Nigeria's lackluster performance at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa in which the Super Eagled failed to progress to the second round and the eventual exit of the team's Swedish Coach, Lars Lagerback, some school of thought felt the need to go back to a home-grown coach for the national team. And the name on the lips of most football analysts was former international, Samson Siasia, and their argument was based on the premise that he has been successful at the junior level-leading the country to the final of the U-20 WYC in Netherland and the final of the football event of the Beijing Olympics in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
This school of thought further argued that with many of the players that passed through him at the age grade cadre now in the Super Eagles, Siasia was the 'missing link' in the senior national team. With loads of pressure mounted on the NFF eggheads, the federation was left with little choice than to employ 'SiaOne', as most of his fans love to call him.
At the last stage of the 2012 AFCON qualifying match against Guinea at the Abuja National Stadium, with scores at 2-1 and with less than 10 minutes left of play, Siasia showed his poor knowledge of the rules guiding the AFCON qualifiers. Not knowing that with the result as it stood Eagles have already booked the ticket to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon behind the visitors, but he rather continued to attack thinking the team needed a wide margin victory to qualify. He therefore exposed the defence and the Guineans equalised to deny Nigeria hoisting her flag at the 2010 AFCON.
"We thought we were going through at 2-1, but we were not sure if that was enough, and we didn't want to take any chances; that was why we were pushing. Otherwise, we could have held on at 2-1," Siasia admitted his little knowledge of the rules of the qualifier.
Another fact remains that managing players at the junior level and players at the height of their career is a different ball game, and Siasia's failure to manage well the 'big boys' cost him the Super Eagles job. There was no hiding the fact that things were not well with him and the trio of Osaze Odemwingie, Mikel Obi and Vincent Enyeama, who he indeed placed on suspension. Siasia's preference for second choice goalkeeper, Dele Aiyenugba eventually proved to be a grave error, as the former Enyimba of Aba shot stopper was very shaky and made some school boy errors.
Indeed, at the beginning of the uncertainty that trailed Stephen Keshi’s stay as Eagles’ gaffer, Siasia was said to have expressed his readiness to manage the Super Eagles if approached by the Nigeria Football Federation, saying he had learnt from his past errors and would be willing to prove his doubters wrong if given a second chance.
"I have been there before and I did my best. I am always ready to come back and continue from where I stopped. Honestly, I will be delighted to come back if the authorities need my services. I have learnt my lessons and this time around I am ready to shame my critics. I had no time to prove myself with the team as I was there for only 10 months, which was not enough. It takes time to build a good team. Of course it is a thing of pride to be the coach once again. I always felt I have an unfinished business with the Super Eagles considering the way I left. We had a great team that I could have built on for the future, but I was denied the opportunity and I really felt bad about it,” Siasia was quoted as saying.
Though, he later denied the statement, saying he never at no time held any meeting with the NFF about taking over from Keshi.
"This is news to me. Nobody has discussed anything like that with me. May be they are talking about the NFF getting a new coach after its Congress. If they want me fine; if they don’t want me fine. I wish Keshi well and I have no grudges against him. He has done well for the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Siasia has started building slowly his U23 team with one leg to the finals of the All Africa Games after beating Gabon 2-0 last Saturday in Abuja.
”When you don’t have confidence you’re bound to make many mistakes and I think that was the biggest problem, hopefully and gradually they’ll get used to playing here in Nigeria. In Gabon they were so relaxed and played very well. If we could win 4-1 away from home I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to do it here. In the first half the Gabonese players had much chances than we did. The players made so many mistakes, passing the ball back to themselves, perhaps they were scared paying in Nigeria but these are young boys, they’ll get used to it gradually. The most important thing is that we will correct all these lapses before the next game," Siasia said.
Siasia has however carpeted coaches in the Nigeria domestic league as not living up to their responsibilities as it concerns the training and development of local players, saying the work of national team coaches would have been made simpler if players were properly groomed by their club.
“It is so pathetic that you have to spend a lot of time to teach these players the basics before you even go into the issue of blending and working out of your pattern and formations. Importantly, we are looking at building players that will be ripe for the FIFA World Cup in Russia. This is why we have to concentrate on the young players for now,” Siasia said.
NFF last year appointed Siasia, as the head coach of the U-23 team. The 47-year old former Eagles striker led the U-20 team, Flying Eagles, to the finals of both the 2005 U-20 World Cup and the U-20 African Youth Championship. He won the African Youth Championship and made it to the finals of the tournament where he lost 2–1 to Argentina.
Siasia was again in 2007 appointed head coach of. He led the U23 national team to the finals of the 2008 Olympics against Argentina and won silver. He also led the team to win the inaugural Intercontinental Cup in Malaysia in 2008 with only Nigerian league players.
In 2010, he succeeded the former Eagles coach, a Lagerback, and was sacked in 2011 after his failure to take Nigeria to the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.
Earlier in his coaching career, he coached boys teams, U12 Classic I and U17 Challenge A, to regional ranking and top state honors in the USA.
The question on the lips of observers now is: does Siasia have the prerequisite to handle the senior national team or he should just be condemned to only the age grade teams?
