Nutmeg Radio

Nigeria has appointed Swede Lars Lagerback as their new national team coach on a five-month contract.  I’m still trying to figure out why.  I wrote an earlier piece about African nations’ perpetual need to hire foreigners to lead African teams.  With the firing of Nigerian Shaibu Amodu, there’s only one remaining African coach poised to lead a side at Africa’s first World Cup, Algeria’s Rabah Saadane.

This isn’t about xenophobia.  It is about understanding why African FAs always end up paying so much money to foreigners who, more often than not, end up turning in the same results as local coaches.

Over the past few decades, the Nigerian coaching job has been just about as stable as the Nigerian Presidency.  Since 1994, Nigeria has made seventeen coaching appointments.  That’s seventeen coaching changes in sixteen years.  Granted, four of those appointments have been the same guy, Shaibu Amoudu, the coach they just fired.  So let me amend my statement.  Given that Nigeria has had only four heads of state since 1994, the Nigerian national team job is actually significantly less stable than the Nigerian Presidency.

Stability is essential for the development of national football, especially right before a World Cup.  Looking at other nations, managerial stability is a common trait of teams heading into the World Cup.  It’s a sad state of affairs when the Argentine FA is an example of how to do things.  But so far, even they are sticking by their man by giving Diego Maradona a chance to implement his vision, whatever that may be.  I can get behind that.

Here’s a multiple-choice question for countries that are not yet soccer powers.  Which of the following should be requirements in a national team coach?

A.    Someone who has experience in your country/culture.
B.    Someone who actually cares about the long-term development of the game in your country.
C.    Both

Correct, the answer is ‘C’. Now let’s apply this list to Nigeria.

The list of candidates for the Nigeria post included Swedes Sven-Göran Eriksson and Lars Lagerback, the ever-English Glenn Hoddle, and the journeyman Frenchman Bruno Metsu (who also goes by Abdul Karim, a name he took on after converting to Islam).  Of the four candidates, Metsu is the only one with any significant experience in African football.  Metsu’s most notable exploit in African football was leading World Cup debutant, Senegal, past France, their former colonizers, in the 2002 World Cup.  But let’s not focus on Metsu since he was actually qualified.  Rather, let’s look first at Sven, someone who has no experience in African football, and likely has no vested interest in the long-term development of Nigerian football.  Here are a few recent gems from the Swede:

On his preferred destination: “I’m a gypsy – it doesn’t matter where I live as long as it’s a good project.”  (via BBC)

On coaching Nigeria: “I think the squad is talented and I’ll like to work with the team. I love the warm weather here and I think my experience with England will be useful in leading the team (Eagles) to do well in the World Cup in South Africa.” (via Next)

Interesting.  So Sven likes warm weather.  I’m glad that works for Sven, but the World Cup is in South Africa where it will be (drum roll) … winter.  It won’t be as cold as it gets in Sweden in the winter time, but it will also not be “Africa hot” as Sven may have been hoping.

But it’s really the first comment that boils down the problem with mercenary coaching.  “It doesn’t matter where I live as long as it’s a good project.”  The thing is, it should matter.

Look at U.S. National Team coach Bob Bradley.  Say what you want about Bradley (who I like), but it’s clear that coaching the U.S. National Team matters to him.  If you look at the aforementioned requirements for national team coach selection, Bradley is ‘C’.  Both.  He knows U.S. soccer culture inside and out, coaching at Princeton, in MLS, and now with the U.S. National Team.  From Bradley’s days at Princeton, he understands the roots of American soccer, everything from how youth clubs work to how young players are developed and the systemic problems facing U.S. soccer.  Bradley actually came on a scouting mission to one of my high school matches long ago.  So I know he gets around at one of the lowest levels of U.S. soccer, high school soccer, or at least he used to.

Nigeria needs a Bob Bradley.  Someone who knows.  Someone who cares.

Nigeria’s predicament is not just Nigerian; it applies to many countries in Africa where stability is chronically absent.  Nigerian football needs someone who understands the local mentality, the players, where they come from, and the root causes of what leads Nigeria to be champions at the U-17 level, only to repeatedly falter at the senior level.  That person doesn’t have to be a Nigerian, but the person probably shouldn’t be someone whose closest connections to Africa are Sol Campbell and Mexican football.  Yet, Sven was a final candidate.  Nigeria must do better.  Africa must do better.

Obviously, Sven is the most entertaining example.  But the selection of fellow Swede Lars Lagerback as Nigeria’s new coach is almost equally as curious.  Lagerback spent his entire career in Sweden.  No, not the Sweden that borders Togo (because there isn’t one), the Scandinavian one.  Quick, name five similarities between Sweden and Nigeria.  Can’t think of any?  Neither can I.  What is the likelihood of Lagerback moving to Nigeria for a long-term stint?  I’d guess not likely.  Unless Lagerback has been going to Nigeria for years, he’ll learn quickly that Lagos is very different from Stockholm.

Lagerback will know that Nigerians are passionate about their football.  It is common knowledge that Nigeria supplies players to top sides and leagues around the world.  In youth football, Nigeria won the first FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1985, and followed that up by winning the tournament in 1993 and 2007.  In fact, since the FIFA U-17 World Cup began, there have been thirteen tournaments.  Nigeria has come in first or second place six out of those thirteen times.

So is the problem talent?  Obviously not.  The problem is more likely a fundamental lack of understanding about how to best develop Nigerian football from top to bottom, from youth football to senior football.  But is Lagerback willing to address this problem?  Maybe, but five months is an awfully short time for someone with no experience in African football.

Here’s a nice non-soccer-related parallel.  For those of you who paid attention to the World Bank in the 80s and early 90s, you might recall structural adjustment programs.  For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, structural adjustment programs quite simply were loan programs where conditions were placed on developing countries looking to get new loans or amended loan terms.  The goal was to make developing countries behave responsibly by saying, “We’ll give you X, if you do Y,” which theoretically is all well and good.

However, the notion of charitable conditionality imposed by outsiders began to break down when the so-called experts showed that they didn’t really have an understanding of the problems on the ground and the mechanisms necessary to implement change.  I know, bad, bad, foreigners.  But the finger should not just be pointed at foreign nations and institutions.  For ages, African leaders have bought into the external expertise hook, line and sinker, often just because conventional thinking has been that foreign is better.  This is one of African football’s biggest problems in a nutshell.

African teams have been playing the follow-the-omniscient-foreigner game for years.  And just like the World Bank had to deal with failure after failure from this game, African teams can look forward to systemic failure after failure until countries can find a coach, wherever he or she may be from, who understands the needs of African football, and who, like Bob Bradley, actually cares about long-term development.

I am confident that Bradley doesn’t have an exit plan from U.S. soccer.  But I would wager that the same couldn’t be said for Lagerback, or Sven if he had landed the job.

A last point. It’s not the foreigner’s fault.  Sven recently left English Second Division club Notts County only months after accepting the job.  Taking the Notts County job was a consummate display of shortsightedness and desperation.  Yet, he was on the short-list for the Nigeria job months later.  Although this may provide some insight into Sven’s motives, this does not show that there’s a problem with Sven.  It does, however, reveal that the real problem lies with the Nigerian Football Federation.

There’s an element of self-respect that’s required here.  Nigeria needs to have the decency to hire a coach who wants them as badly as they want him. Nigeria needs to hire someone who has the intention of staying for longer than five months.  But no one with the right credentials will accept the job if you can’t show that it can be a stable job.  I can’t believe I’m writing this sentence, but perhaps the Nigerian FA needs to be as painfully stubborn as the Argentine FA.

Let’s fast forward a bit to July 2010.  Lagerback might succeed in getting results in South Africa, but then what? Sadly, I imagine that Nigeria will be starting from scratch again.  Foreign coaches, get your resumes ready.  I know I am.

(Cut to a room full of Nigerian school children standing up one by one.  “I am Lars Lagerback.  I am Lars Lagerback.  I am Lars Lagerback.  I am Lars Lagerback.”)