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The problem with our national team performance can't be attributed to the coaches

The problem with our national team performance can't be attributed to the coaches or our elite foreign based players, they all gave in their best shuts in all the games played so far. It will be very unfair to apotion blame to either the coaches nor the players.


Elite players need to play on elite pitches, not good pitches.(See below the classification of pitches for football)


The Nigerian home base eagles would perform better than our elite players on a good pitch. 


The super Eagles elite players can never give a good performance on a pitch that holds back the ball because they train and play speed football  week in week out for their club sides on synthetic infused pitches meant for speed football. 

SPEED FOOTBALL IS THE FUTURE.


The transition in training from speed football to slow pace football in just few days of training before match day would kill the performance of even the best player in the world for a top competitive game like a world cup qualifiers or the African Nation Cup qualifiers.


Football today is not about 11 aside kicking the ball on a green surface, football has gone scientific, the ball bounce, the ball roll and biomechenics of the players foot plays a very important role in 21st century football.


Even if we employ the services of the best coach in the world for the Nigerian Super Eagles, the story will not change if we are going to be relying on our elite foreign based players for the super Eagles.


Since our next do or die game against South Africa will be played on a good pitch in 6 months time  we need to start looking inwards towards our NPFL for players who are playing week in week out on those good pitches for their  NPFL clubs and have a fusion team of both home base and foreign base elite players.


The NFF has a very strong role to play in supporting our national team coaches if we really want to get it right. 


The NFF has to have a very strong facilities team filled with seasoned professional groundsmen, I don't honestly know if the NFF have such team in place, the role of this facilities team will be an advance team to visit and inspect the playing conditions of the away team pitch and come up with an accessment report of the playing condition of the match day pitch.


This accessment of the Away team pitch playing condition can be an added advantage for the team formation from the Coach.


Herein attached are the different classifications for standard football pitches in the world. 


I remain your loyal groundsman

Ebi Ezekiel Egbe

Member of Grounds Management Association UK.

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