Sunday Oliseh came, they messed him up, he left. Before him were Big Boss Stephen Okechukwu Keshi (of wonderful memory) and Austin Eguavoen. Emmanuel Amunike is currently trying out his hands with the junior teams while Ike Shoronmu remains a consistent figure in the national team set up. Jay Jay, Mutiu Adepoju, Uche Okechukwu, Rufai and George Finidi are either not interested in the national teams or don't want to come near the poisoned chalice that is national team assignment.
Samson Siasia, the laundry man of Nigerian football has thrown in the towel.
Over the years, former Super Eagles midfielder and Bayelsa born Samson Siasia did the laundry for Nigerian football. On many occasions, he was called upon to clean up a mess left by mostly the NFF or a fleeing coach. This call, he always answered diligently. Having stamped his foot with the 2005 U-20 silver winning world cup team, he became some sort of hot cake. Every club wanted to hire him. Opportunities weren't also lacking on the international scene. However, he made it a point to answer Nigeria's call every time he was called upon. The most recent being his recall to the Super Eagles set up after Sunday Oliseh fled for sanity sake. Siasia came on board an already sinking ship. There was little he could do to stop Egypt from qualifying for AFCON ahead of Nigeria. At that point, note that he was handling both the U-23 team and the Super Eagles. After we crashed out of AFCON, conceding the slot to Egypt, he focused on the U-23 team.
His teams ordeal at the hands of the NFF, Sports Ministry and Solomon Dalung himself is Ochanja market gist. It's no secret. He guided an ill motivated team to Olympic bronze; a feat above all feats. If Brazil, the Olympic football gold winners received the treatment Siasia and his team received from Nigeria, they wouldn't have made it past the group stages. Rather than give up, he kept his team together and they got the bronze medal after beating Honduras in the third place play off. This is a coach that wasn't paid his salary for five months, his only official vehicle taken back by authorities from his wife and denied by his employers. Nigeria was unfair to Stephen Keshi, Amodu Shuaibu, Austin Eguavoen, Christian Chukwu, Yusuf Salisu, Sunday Oliseh and most recently Samson Siasia.
See eh, no be curse, na warning; with this attitude towards home grown Coaches, we are going nowhere. Look around, there is no other sound coach that will take the crap we heaped on Siasia and still perform credibly. Indeed, we have chased away our laundry man due to gross incompetence of our sports administrators. In the long run we will all agree one day that Samson Siasia took jobs many wouldn't dare and indeed, is 'the last of the Mohicans'.
Photo credit: xclusivehit.com.ng
Follow Ikenna Enenta on Twitter @ikenna005
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