Why Nigeria's Method for Selecting Senior National Team Manager is a Cyclical Abyss.

If you can take a moment to sit back, relax, and then attempt to make sense about how Nigeria has decided to fire and select its senior national team manager across time, you will sure make little sense of it. It is a cyclical abyss. By this one refers to the fact that it is cyclical because same things are repeated over time. It is an abyss because it appears to be a bottomless pit of hell, to which a conclusion, an endpoint, or a resolution is never in sight.

It is simply a matter of looking at the present coach and deeming him tactically clueless (whatever that means for a coach that is learned, certified, and experienced) and then making a case for hiring one that does not resemble him. That is if he is local then we must hire a foreigner, if he is a foreigner then surely a local will be the solution. Soon enough we will add, if he is young, then let's hire an older guy, if he is European then let's hire a South American. Searching for the criteria for hiring coaches in Nigeria is like searching for a needle in a hay stack and that is if the needle is in fact among the hay. No deep thought is needed, let's simply throw up all manner of solutions whether they are logical or not. In the end, the cycle becomes largely from an indigenous coach to a foreign one and then back to indigenous and an endless cycle develops. What a pity?

Throwing Around Vague Concepts

Of course, a large number of analyses and fans who are at the vanguard that ultimately generates this cycle of abyss have very little clue of what they talk about. All they need do is throw around vague concepts for which they rarely define nor can they even define them given that by defining them they are liable to being proven wrong. Thus, it is better to keep the ideas vague. For instance, the favorite tags include tactically clueless, world class or good coach, ability to select best players, among other vague terms bandied around by those who claim to know. Meanwhile, the reality of past failures in selecting these coaches is never deeply examined.

What exactly is tactically clueless? For a national team level coach this term is absurd. No national team coach can be tactically clueless considering that they have experience at that level and they are more likely certified. Of course, the critics, in most cases, are neither experienced nor are they certified. What the critics have is an authority to write or talk in some mass medium. It is like the blind critiquing a beauty contest that they are unable to see. What is more likely with a national team coach is simply that he is tactically outwitted in a particular game (often not in all), that his wards are unable to execute the tactics based on a successful resistance by the opponent or some other impediments, including psychological unreadiness.

Nigeria's search for a world class coach is one in which the term 'world class' is never established. But maybe I should suggest what it means from my own subjective stance. A world class coach is one who has a pattern of success with a club or national team that generates global notoriety. In essence, there are few such coaches that exist at any given time. But by defining this term, our claim suddenly becomes falsifiable! Well, here is why. The only Nigerian coach that could be called world class was Otto Gloria who coached the team from 1979 to 1982. Gloria had been globally recognized for his Benfica teams that won the European championships in the 1960s and was sought by Brazilian authorities to coach Brazil at the 1970 World Cup. How did Gloria do with Nigeria? Not particularly good. He did win the 1980 AFCON that Nigeria hosted. However, his record of efficiency is at best middling and he coached the team to a shock group phase elimination at the 1982 AFCON.

The ability to select Nigeria's best players is another idea thrown around. Each analyst and each fan has a player that they believe should not only be invited but start for the team. That belief is passed on as 'objective', beyond reproach. If the coach has a different belief, then the coach must be clueless. This, to be clear, pertains to every coach that ever coached Nigeria. Even the  now revered Westerhoff was pilloried for not playing certain players. No one has thought about the meaning of 'best' player. Best is always based on the eyes of the beholder. There is no unanimity on who Nigeria's best is, it is subjective and will always be. Some have suggested that the Technical Committee select players for the coach. An incredible suggestion and one that is extremely dangerous considering the likely conflict that it will create between coach and committee never mind that only the former bears responsibility for a poor outcome on game day.

Local/Indigenous v Foreign Coach

Of course, the cycle of foreign to indigenous and back to foreign coach is established in Nigeria. Yet, all statistical analyses indicate that the success of a coach with the Nigerian national team has not been defined by the nationality of the coach. Yet the artificial categorization of indigenous v foreign persists. Why not simply focus on 'good v poor' coaches and then setup indices that guide the definition? Both of those types of coaches are bound in Nigeria and outside.

Some have argued that the categorization is actually a smokescreen for hiring decision that is based on financial value. In essence, if a foreign coach is paid a large sum of money but cannot deliver then why not hire a local one who is paid less and, thus, failure becomes palatable because financial loss is less. However, this thinking is defeatist. The goal should not be to solely focus on money but to hire a coach who could consistently deliver good results for Nigeria within a reasonable financial compensation scale.

Moving beyond the smokescreen, let's examine the 'good v poor' coach concept. Here, I go with one of those vague concepts, along with an index -- good results. So what does it mean? In my opinion, good results must be reasonable ones given Nigeria's stature of a top-tier African footballing country. At the World Cup, this should mean qualifying for the World Cup tournament and going beyond the group phase given the historical records of African participation at the World Cup. Anything less will constitute poor result. At the AFCON, a good result is qualifying for and finishing among the Top Four at the AFCON tournament. This, historically, suggests a good tournament performance for all top-tier African national teams. Anything less, for Nigeria, denotes poor result.

The use of the above indices should help ditch the idea of choosing a coach based on whether the coach is indigenous or foreign. Instead, the coach's record such as those mentioned above or a similar index should give a pre-hire idea of whether or not the coach is a good one. Moreover, the coach's playing philosophy should be considered in order to match expectations of the Nigerian public. For instance, there is an emerging view that Nigeria should be an offensively aggressive team and not one focused defensively. These expectations are important in hiring a coach.

The Reality About National Team Performance and Coaching Nigeria

We must come to terms with the fact that the cyclical abyss of football manager hiring in Nigeria has done very little to improve the fortunes of our national team. What is known is that coaches who have become perceived as successful in Nigeria -- Father Tiko, Clemens Westerhoff, Stephen Keshi, and Shuaibu Amodu -- have one thing in common. They have demonstrated ability to obtain a pattern (not just in one event) of good results as defined above. They have either been in the AFCON Top Four multiple times and/or gone beyond the group phase of the World Cup. Importantly, they cut across the indigenous v foreign divide.

Although none of those names can be labelled World Class going by our definition of World Class, we know that their achievements have been lauded by Nigerians even if some of that praise came years after they left. Importantly, the only world class coach that Nigeria ever had (Otto Gloria) did not achieve better. In fact, some would argue that his overall results were poor compared to the coaches that we have listed as liked and widely remembered by Nigerians.