How Eagles should play>Finidi George.

Finidi George is one of the heroes of the
revolution Clemens Westerhof launched
in Nigerian football, a tremendous effort
that saw Nigeria rank the 5th best
football country in the world. It was a
feat many doubt if it can ever be
achieved again in this millennium. We
called Finidi’s house in Spain and asked
him what he thought of the two teams,
advice to the Eagles and what it feels like
playing in a cup final of this nature. He
said the following:
“I’m excited about the performance of
Stephen Keshi and his team. Sometimes,
it is good to enter a tournament as
underdogs. It reduces the pressure on
you. We have a good team and we
should be able to win. I’m particularly
hoping that we win so that our
authorities can begin to respect
indigenous coaches. Our people easily
fall for European coaches. And most
times they hire the ones who are not
better than our coaches.
Possible-Eagles
“The only difference is the skin and
that’s what they respect. I’m not
condemning foreign coaches but we
appear to generally have complex and
we go for any white man in the name of
foreign coach. What Keshi is doing now
is good. Even if he is no longer there in
Nigeria, his success can open the door
for other indigenous coaches who
should be inspired by the success he has
achieved so far and begin to work hard.
When you give somebody a national
team coaching job, give him about four
to five years to perform. If at the end of
this period it is clear that he is not
performing, you can then disengage
him. But it is not so for our people. They
sack under one year.
“We’ll not develop that way. I want Keshi
to win so that some people can shut up
and respect indigenous coaches and
encourage them to succeed. We should
learn from our mistakes and move on.
On the match against Burkina Faso, we
will be playing against a team that can
run for 90 minutes and they are not
tired. They are physically strong, very
strong players. I think that what we can
do is to pass the ball around. Let the ball
run and let Burkina players chase the
ball. We must not go into duels with
them because of their physical nature.
Let the ball do the running. We pass, look
for space and attack it. We should try to
score and lead well just like we did
against Mali. We need to play the way we
played our last two matches. If we do,
we will win the cup.
“The atmosphere is always electric on
cup final days. We didn’t enter the
competition as favourites and we
marched on to the final where some
people now feel we are favourites. We
should handle the pressure well and
remember that we went in as
underdogs. We should not, therefore, be
carried away. You play in a cup final to
win. No second chance. You must do
more than playing. You fight as a team
too. The fighting spirit must be there.
You must fight on till the referee’s last
whistle. I think that we can win the cup
and that will make not only our day but
also our year.”