Great footballers don’t
just appear from nowhere, the best footballers in the world be it Neymar,
Mbape, Leo Messi, or Cristiano Ronaldo learned their trades at various football
academies.
But for Nigeria, a
country with over 170 million population, her football talents are horned on
the streets with very few making it to lime light.
No doubt there is
abundant natural football talent scattered across the 36 states of the
federation but these talents waste away untapped because there are no
deliberate attempts to nurture and guide them to fulfilling their potentials.
Austin Jay Jay Okocha a
former PSG player who is widely regarded as one of the finest footballers to
come out of Africa, in an interview with BBC sports academy, describes
his rough and tough background as a young footballer growing up in the streets
of Enugu, Enugu state Nigeria.
“There were no grass
pitches where we lived, so we used to play on the street corner, or wherever
else we could find a space.
The pitches were very
bad, but I think that helped me to develop a good technique.
Because the surface was
so rough, you always had to be conscious of your ball control and how you
passed the ball.
When I was 13, I started
playing for my school team, the first time I had played under a manager.
I started realizing that
I had to keep to my position and play with some discipline. Before then I was
just playing for the sake of playing." The former Bolton Wanderers player
said.
The lack of proper
developmental process for budding young football talents has been the greatest
undoing for three times Africa champions, Nigeria and this has been a source of
serious concern to millions of football fans, including the commander-in-chief
of the Nigerian Armed Forces, President, Muhammadu Buhari who recently showed
his undying love for the round leather game by tweeting a picture of himself
watching the Super Eagles of Nigeria play the Lions of Cameroon from his modest
sitting room, at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, Nigeria.
Top European nations
like Germany, Spain and Belgium have all at one point or another turned their
attentions to youth football development programmes and it paid off. Germany
after suffering an embarrassing Euro 2000 group stage exit instituted a youth
football development system that values coaches and nurtures indigenous talent
and 14 years later they emerged world champions. Spain's phenomenal
football success in the last 17 years can be attributed to a deliberate policy
among the clubs to promote young, home-grown players and within this period
they won two European titles and one world cup trophy. Belgium, a country
with a population of around 11m, with just 34 professional clubs competing
across two leagues, have within 15 years of dedicated youth football
development produced quality players like Eden Hazard, Thomas Vermaelen, Jan
Vertonghen, Thibaut Courtois, Kevin de Bruyne, Mousa Dembélé, Axel Witsel,
Romelu Lukaku among others who are currently some of the finest talents in
football right now.
There have been efforts
made by the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF to institute youth football
development programmes, geared towards nurturing young football talents that
could be graduated through the various national teams until they are good
enough to play for the Super Eagles. The programmes don’t stand the test of
time, largely because of inconsistency, lack of continuity and little or no
sponsorship drive.
An example of this could
be seen in 2008 when the then NFF president Alhaji Sani Lulu lunched the NFF
U-13 football development programme. The programme involved the selection of
national U-13 and U-15 teams from the annual NFF U-13/U-15 championship. The
selected players were invited to summer camps which were held every school
holiday period. At the camps, the players were taught the rudiments of football
and how to play the Nigerian way. They also played friendly games locally and
internationally and within seven years, Nigeria won back to back FIFA U-17
world cup titles between 2013 and 2015 with majority of the players coming from
the programme.
This programme gave
birth to players like Kelechi Iheanacho of Leicester City, Taiwo Awoniyi of
Liverpool, Victor Osimhen of Wolfsburg, Dennis Bonaventure of FC Bragga,
Alhassan Ibrahim of Austria Vienna, Chidera Eze of FC Porto within seven
years. While these names might not ring a bell to the average European football
fan, they are players who are between 18 and 20 years old and between 2013 and
now have been rated among the best 50 players on earth alongside players like
Gabriel Jesus, Renato Sanches, Martin Odegaard, Marcus Rashford, Leroy Sane and
so on.
Unfortunately, since
2010, the NFF youth football development programme became inconsistent and the
NFF attributed this to lack or paucity of funds. In fact, the NFF U-13/U-15
championship did not hold in 2014 and the summer camps became inconsistent too.
It made a return in 2015, but the summer camps were still missing. However in
2016, the NFF now under the leadership of Amaju Pinnick secured a sponsorship
deal for the programme and renamed it the Future Eagles.
The Future Eagles
sponsored by Zenith bank is being reengineered by NFF’s youth football
committee, led by NFF’s first vice president Seyi Akinwunmi.
“We decided that we must
have a plan for our youth football, because in times past Nigeria has won and
lost. We won the U-17 FIFA world cup and the next time we did not qualify,
obviously not because of lack of talents.
I’ve been to numerous
countries of the world and have attended several youth football tournaments but
truly, I have not seen any that has the talent in abundance as Nigeria.
So we decided that we
should have a youth football policy starting from U-13, we will have children
who are exposed to tournaments at an early age and its benefits cannot be
quantified.
It involves states
producing their best 18 players at the U-13 and U-15 levels. There will be
zonal tournaments in the six geopolitical zones, where the best 18 players from
the zones will be picked to play against each other at the national level.
But the key is not about
winning the tournament, it is about selecting the best players from the entire
competition for the national U-13 and U-15 teams.
The talents discovered
from the 2016 edition were incredible, Nigeria is ready to take over the world,
believe me.” An obviously elated Akinwunmi said at the unveiling of plans for
the 2017 edition of the Future Eagles championship in Lagos, Nigeria.
The zonal finals of the
2017 Future Eagles championship will take place between September 13 and
16. The group stage matches and semi finals will come up in Kano between 20th
-23rd September, while the final will be staged in Lagos on a date to be agreed
with the sponsors, Zenith Bank.
If Nigeria must realize
her dream of ruling the world, then they must learn from the Spaniards. LA LIGA
youth team trainer, Oscar Pruzon who was in Nigeria to lecture Nigeria youth
coaches in March 2017 revealed that an average Spanish player would have been
exposed to at least 500 competitive matches before the age of 17.
The Future Eagles U-13
team was in Rabat Morocco in August 2017 where they engaged the Moroccan
U-15/U-17 national teams in two friendly games. While the Future Eagles lost
the first game 1-0, the second game ended in a 1-1 draw.
What are the chances
that this programme will be sustained even beyond the tenure of the current NFF
board?
“Already awareness
has been created for the programme and what we hope to develop is a system
where everybody starts going to look for youth players to play for their teams.
That is why we have started from the states, infiltrating it into the state
football associations, it may take a while, but surely youth football
development will soon be our culture.” Akinwunmi added.
The Future Eagles
championship will also be used to breed young football referees while only
coaches who have a minimum of CAF C Licenses will be allowed to handle teams,
making case for young and certificated trainers to grow the future stars.
This might not be the
best youth football development programme in the world right now but obviously
a culture to develop young football talents is being created and young Nigerian
footballers are being given better chances to succeed more than Jay Jay Okocha
had.
Courtesy: Bunmi Blair
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