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Nigeria And Chelsea FC: When Bad Coaches Take Charge
The comprehensive 4-0 defeat of one of the world’s most esteemed football clubs, Chelsea FC by Real Madrid in the Champions League tournament indeed resonates with the fate and misfortunes of Nigeria.
Chelsea in the last year topped in the footballers’ spending market, expending $305 million in the transfer market. That was besides a total net investment of $250 million in the 2022 summer season.
These represent the highest figures in the Premier League.
Despite the spending spree, Chelsea are now out of contention in all competitions, the earliest time the club have run out of pursuit of football glory in recent years. The club also sit at the 11th position in the Premier League!
What happened to our Chelsea?
Nigeria bears a similar narrative.
Generally acclaimed for its natural resources of gold, petroleum and other rich minerals, Nigeria has also been acclaimed for its rich depository of human resources.
It is now generally acclaimed that the Nigerian-American population has the highest proportion of postgraduate qualifications among other enviable statistics in the United States. Even in the arts, Nigerian music is now celebrated to the extent that its musicians are now opening acts in global events.
Nollywood, the movie industry that was inspired by Living In Bondage has come to prominence making Nigerian actors show stoppers the world over.
However, just like Chelsea with its abundance of talents, Nigeria as a team refuses to move forward without a cutting edge in the attack.
Chelsea spent hundreds of millions of dollars on stars without shopping for a quality striker.
Nigerian footballers are soaring individually but as a team the nation has now become a bystander in African competitions that the country dominated in the years of yore. That is despite the fact that the nation’s football stars continue to win individual laurels in Europe.
Indeed, in recruiting the national football coach, Jose Peseiro, the Football Federation went for a man with a performance record well below par. His only enviable record is perhaps being able to manage failure in Nigeria.
Months after he bought one of the world’s most prestigious football clubs, Todd Boehly sacked the highly talented tactician, Thomas Tuchel for what many saw as off-field reasons.
Yes, at the point of sack, Chelsea were under the weather, but not anywhere near where the club are now.
The owner’s option was to recruit Graham Potter, a man who had managed the moderately successful Brighton. Brighton were, however, never near the league of Chelsea.
Besides, he never had the pedigree of any of Chelsea’s recent managers who had spectacular success in managing players of diverse talents.
Like Chelsea, Nigeria was under the weather with President Goodluck Jonathan when we vociferously clamoured for Muhammadu Buhari, a man that had shown moderate success in his military career but with limited success in managing diversity outside the army.
It was so that with limited expertise in diversity management Nigeria has under his leadership failed to find its potentials in virtually every area of national life in the past eight years.
The analogy of Chelsea and Nigeria becomes even more bewildering when it is considered that most of the past managers of Chelsea including Jose Mourinho, Thomas Tuchel, Carlo Ancelotti today hold their heads high despite their difficult times managing what your correspondent thought was once the most regarded club in the world.
Some of Nigeria’s past managers such as President Olusegun Obsasnjo, President Goodluck Jonathan and even the former military leaders are now looked upon with acclaim compared to the present manager.
Indeed, some former antagonists of the third term constitution amendment proposal now rue their opposition.
The Nigerian situation and Chelsea even become more baffling when illustration is made of their transition plans.
Many Chelsea supporters were befuddled on April 6, 2023 when the owners of the club announced our one time playing hero, Frank Lampard as caretaker manager despite his devastating managerial record.
Lampard came into his new job after failed managerial stints at Chelsea and Everton, clubs he took from top to bottom.
On his return, he has now created a unique record of being the first manager we know at Chelsea to lose his first four matches!
It is in the same spirit that Nigeria has looked beyond more physically fit managers to recruit a new president-elect that did not have the intellectual or physical robustness to even make an interface with the critical fans in the media during the campaigns.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a darling of many Nigerian political fans, however, comes in with a doubtful record in governance.
Lagos, the city he has managed since 1999 was earlier this week rated as the second worst city to live in among 242 countries.
In the just released Quality Of Life Index, Lagos was 241 out of 242, only above Manila, Philippines. Well just as he is hailed as the man that helps to discover talents, Nigerians are praying that as he assumes office pending the settlement of all judicial issues that Tinubu would help to discover the talent that will help Nigeria score the critical goals in development. He should certainly not act like the Chelsea owners who bought all the most expensive players without buying a striker!
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