NOW IS THE TIME FOR "LOCAL COACHES"

I know apologies are in order. I didn't plan to be away from this page for so long, but alas it's been five long weeks already. So much to write, yet, so little time. In that time, the Nations Cup finals have come and gone - Egypt deservedly claiming another title and Nigeria unsurprisingly failing woefully.

Egypt were coached by former international Ali Shehata, Nigeria - and several other countries - had an European on the bench so this was perhaps a victory of sorts for African coaches. That would appear even more so since the Nigerian FA is this week debating which former Super Eagles' player to name as Berti Vogts replacement.

Personally, I think it's a great idea, but not just because I am endorsing local coaches generally. You will see from my views below that I am particularly interested in a certain kind of "local coach".

Here's a little piece I wrote about seven years ago which I believe is still relevant today. The examples may be a little dated, but there've been even more evidence to buttress the point in the years since. Enjoy and let me know what you think. And by the way, I think the Nigeria job should go to Stephen Keshi and I'll explain why in my next post.


TIME TO TAP THAT WELL OF EXPERIENCE
Sola Egunjobi

It’s been long overdue and it seems to be happening now. Zambia’s Kalusha Bwalya has made a case for it while the likes of George Weah, Ezaki Badou and Stephen Keshi are already setting the trend. I am writing of course of the need for our much-travelled professionals to come back home, at the end of their playing days, to give something back to the countries that have helped put their names on the football map.

That is certainly the trend the world over and the likes of Daniel Pasarella, Franz Beckenbauer, Kevin Keegan, Dino Zoff and Rudi Voeller have all transformed from star players to national team coaches over the last couple of decades. Even in Africa, former players taking on the coaching mantle is certainly no strange occurrence, as the likes of Jomo Sono, Jean Manga Onguene and Mahmoud El Gohary have shown. But while these African coaches, and many more of their ilk have, performed reasonably, I speak of a different breed of former players. I speak of players of the experience and exposure of Weah, Bwalya and Abedi Pele; I speak of players who have played European club soccer at the highest level, players who have acquired the professional attitudes and organisational bent of the European game, players whose experience can match that of today’s breed of new, young coaches the world over.

Perhaps I am overstating the value of playing experience to a coach’s ability, and I certainly agree that a good playing career doesn’t necessarily translate into coaching success. But a look at recent evidence presents a strong case for my thinking. Take erstwhile Holland manager Frank Rijkaard, whose first coaching job, after a career at the top level with Ajax and AC Milan, was to take his country’s national team to the European championship. The taciturn coach performed superbly to lead his team to the semi final. Take current Germany manager Rudi Voeller, who was fortuitously pushed into his new job. The former world cup striker was so successful as interim coach that he was soon persuaded to take the job full time. Like Rijkaard, he had no prior coaching experience. Nor did Beckenbauer when he took over the German team in 1984. He led them to two world cup finals, winning the cup in 1990. There are other examples of players jumping straight into coaching and making a success of it, but the important point here is that African players had never played at the same level as the top Europeans and South Americans and hence have hitherto been unable to produce coaches with the same level of exposure to and experience of the game at that level. Until now, that is.

Today, if Italy can point to a Dino Zoff, Cameroon can boast of Thomas Nkono, who played in Spain, for Espanyol, for several years and also featured at two world cup finals. If Germany can sing the virtues of Rudi Voeller as a top European striker in his heyday, Liberia can make some noise about former world player of the year Weah, whose career has spanned top clubs Monaco, PSG, Milan, Chelsea and Marseilles. If Holland’s Rijkaard was a European Cup winner at Milan, so was Ghana’s Abedi Pele at Marseilles. As African players continue to grow in stature in world football, the trend is bound to continue. Several Africans now feature consistently in the UEFA Champions League and the likes of Bayern Munich defender Samuel Kuffour, Arsenal’s Nwankwo Kanu and Nouredine Naybet of Deportivo la Coruna would, by the end of their careers, have acquired as much experience as any top German, English or Spanish player.

But African countries must actively seek to tap from the deep well of knowledge of these exposed players and it is encouraging to see that a handful are already being utilised to good effect around the continent. Morocco’s 1986 world cup goalkeeper Ezaki Badou was one of the earliest to catch the eye when he coached the Wydad Casablanca club to the final of the Caf Cup in 1999. Erstwhile Nigerian captain, Stephen Keshi, whose career included spells at Lokeren, Anderlecht, and Strasbourg, was also recently included in the Super Eagles coaching crew, as was Nkono in the Indomitable Lions. But the case of Liberia and Weah must be the most inspiring. The Lone Stars have been transformed from a team of no-hopers into giant-killers in just a year since the experienced Weah changed to a player-coach role. There is certainly room for more of the same and I dream of a future in which African countries can stop relying on third-rate, journeymen expatriates and call on coaches who have the experience to match the very best in the world.

PS: Since this write-up was published in 2001, Ezaki Badou led Morocco to the 2004 Nations Cup final and Stephen Keshi qualified little Togo for the World Cup in 2006. How about that?