Eagles Don’t Need Foreign Coach—Fashola

By Kazeem  Ugbodaga

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State says there is no need to hire a foreign coach to take the Super Eagles to this year’s World Cup in South Africa.

He said Shuaibu Amodu should be allowed to take the Eagles to the World Cup as he has impressed and  he can deliver.

“We should be logical, why do we need a foreign coach to take us to the World Cup? All the coaches taking their teams to the World Cup are not available for us to select. Do you want to hire a coach who can’t qualify his country for the World Cup to come and take over from the one who qualifies us for the World Cup?” he asked.

According to Fashola, Amodu had led the Eagles to play several matches in which the Nigerian team won, but that the Nigerian team should step up their game.

“We can inject more youthfulness into the team, but we don’t have a cadet system to develop our youths.  We always have the mentality to win at all costs. We can rebuild our team the way Zambia and Ghana did.

“People are saying that Amodu is not good, but at the ongoing Nations Cup, he has taken us to the last four and you said you don’t want that coach. Favourite teams like Ivory Coast, Cameroun and even the hosts’ team, Angola have all crashed out,” he stated.

The governor said that even though Amodu was not playing good football to please the people, he is delivering the needed results, adding that “there are some coaches who don’t entertain but get the job done.”

Fashola noted that it was better to get good result than to play to please people, an act he said helped former Chelsea coach, Jose Mourinho to win the premiership back to back despite sharp criticism that he did not always play entertaining football.

“Amodu has been winning matches; I think we can define what we really want. How long are we going to hire a foreign coach? If you hire a foreigner to coach the team, how do you get the local capacity needed?” he queried.