FACT CHECKING Oliseh…..

“I don’t have a bench to work right now. In the past one year, Nigeria has used 62 players in our 10 or 11 matches .I don’t have those I can say these are the players to form the core of my team. If I have say six of such players, I can then say these are the core of my team and start to build on it.” 
                        --- Coach Sunday Oliseh.



Fact checking the statement above became necessary as it stuck out. To be sure, Oliseh was not criticizing previous coaches. He was just stating what he believed was fact and it was an answer to a question about who Nigeria’s core players are. However, since then some have questioned why a Nigerian coach should have used 62 players in a single year! We decided to check the facts on this. Below are the results.

1    FACT: Nigeria did in fact use over 60 players in a single year. That is a fact. This occurred in 2014 under Stephen Keshi.  However, it should be noted that this count includes home-based players who were involved in CHAN competition and essentially the coach was managing two national teams. The actual count of players who played in non-related CHAN games was 37 in the year, which involved 22 games. He used 36 each in years 2012 and 2013 with his first team and totals of 55 and 47 in those two years respectively (Including those involved in strictly home-based games) according to my calculation.


2    ADDITIONALLY: We decided to check on a few other things pertaining to player usage.  See Table below. We compared average number of players debuted per game by selected Nigerian coaches and found some shocking results. It ranged from a low of 0.86 by Berti Vogts to a high of 4.43 by Daniel Amokachi. However, a note of caution on Amokachi’s stats. He had to coach the team over very different periods. Often the players were based locally, which meant that the coach was forced to use a different set of players across time since the players he used in 2006 were not available to him in 2010 and 2015 because of migrations. Thus, taking away the Amokachi figure, the coaches who used comparatively high debutants are Eguavoen, Chukwu, and Bonfrere in that order.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lookman with a Brace as Nigeria Overcomes Cameroon 2-0......

Image
Abidjan -- Nigeria moved into the African Football Cup of Nations (AFCON) quarter finals with Ademola Lookman scoring a brace in a 2 - 0 win over Cameroon. Nigeria played a clinical game and remained focused allowing Cameroon to dominate possession but offered the losers few real opportunities. Desperate to measure up, Cameroon made Osimhen suffer several fouls and the increasing desperation led to a caution for Nkoulou who fouled goalie Nwabali in midair. Nwabali, unable to continue, was replaced by goalie Uzoho. _____________________________________________________ Desperate to measure up, Cameroon made Osimhen suffer several fouls and the increasing desperation led to a caution for Nkoulou who fouled goalie Nwabali in midair. Nwabali, unable to continue, was replaced by goalie Uzoho. ____________________________________________________ The game started with Nigeria indicating its intention. After only eight minutes, Nigeria appeared to go ahead as Ajayi scored during a goalmouth scr...
Read more

Nigeria Scraps Through Deservedly....

Image
Abidjan -- Nigeria pipped Guinea Bissau 1-0 in Abidjan at the Houmphouet Boigny Stadium to progress to the second round of the AFCON before an estimated 20,000 spectators. With Ivory Coast going down 0-4 simultaneously to Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria was forced to finish second in the group because of a poorer goal difference compared to the Equatoguineans. Nigeria was clearly the better team using their new structure of 5-3-2 in defense and 3-5-2 in attack. In truth, the losers, who finished without a point in the group, were thoroughly outclassed. The difference in margin could be down to pitiful officiating by referee Ms. Bouchra Karboubi (Morocco) intent on balancing the game with poor officiating. Although, to be clear the referee with assistance of VAR officials ended up making the correct calls after Nigeria had put the ball in the net two other times and fortuitously did not call for a VAR check after the losers had a goal ruled off. Replays indicated the goal by Guinea Bissau sh...
Read more

Junior and Simy Needing Prayers and Minutes

We now have a very good idea who Manager Gernot Rohr plans to take to Russia for the 2018 World Cup, barring injury. His decision to name 30 players for the World Cup camp has done little to disguise his final list. In reality, the only unknown is injury and Rohr's decision at just two positions. Rohr's tendencies, from his first day of appointment in Nigeria, is to be conservative and that has increased the predictability of Nigeria's final squad to Russia. Only Two Spots Still Open It is quite clear that 21 of the invited 30 players are already on Rohr's final list to Russia. The nine left are the likes of Dele Ajiboye, Stephen Eze, Ola Aina, Elderson Echiejile, Uche Agbo, Mikel Agu, John Ogu, Simy Nwankwo, and Junior Lokosa. It is among those that the final cut of seven players will come. But even then, we already know the five that are on the list of certain cuts. Those five are Dele Ajiboye, Stephen Eze, Uche Agbo, Mikel Agu, and Junior Lokosa. Of that list,...
Read more