Posted by By OJIEVA EHIOSUN on
The taste of the pudding is in the eating, people often say. Having tasted the bitter pills of sack as a failed coach, Christian Chukwu is insisting that Berti Vogts must be made to face the same music by being fired by the Nigeria Football Association (NFA).
... Former Super Eagles chief coach Christian Chukwu, hammers NFA and Berti Vogts for deceiving Nigerians
The taste of the pudding is in the eating, people often say. Having tasted the bitter pills of sack as a failed coach, Christian Chukwu is insisting that Berti Vogts must be made to face the same music by being fired by the Nigeria Football Association (NFA). Chukwu, sacked for Nigeria's failure to qualify for the German 2006 World Cup, says that German coach Berti Vogts has eaten the sour grape and his backers in the NFA have no option than to throw in the towel, by resigning enmasse.
Parodying the delay by the NFA to boot out the German, Chukwu, who spoke with Daily Sunsport in Enugu after the weedend league match said that what's sause for the goose is also sause for the gander.
"I was sacked because Nigeria was not going to qualify for the World Cup after the Super Eagles played 1-1 draw in Kano against Angola," the former Green Eagles captain begins. "I was not spared the hammer even when I won bronze in Tunisia in 2004. So, what's the NFA waiting for? They want to still keep a man who did not even go beyond the quarter-finals? That will be a travesty of justice.
"Vogts has failed just like the NFA and they should both apologise to Nigerians and leave. There must not be a sacred cow. Failure has no other name. Let them go."
Chukwu enjoined Nigerians to wipe their tears and get set to hold the NFA and Vogts by the jugular in case they refuse to resign, saying "Nigerians must not allow liars and people who deceive the nation to stay one more day in office."
He said: "Berti Vogts is a mere big but empty name in football. He manifested this with his tactical errors in Ghana and we all paid dearly for them. Nigeria had never had it this bad. Without fear of contradiction, I can say that Ghana 2008 was Nigeria's worst outing ever.
"We left for Ghana with high hopes. Some prophets even predicted that Nigeria was going to win the Nations Cup without kicking the ball. You won't blame them because every Nigerian knows that we have the talents to win. Nobody in his wildest dreams would think our dear almighty Super Eagles would be disgraced like that. It was more embarrassing when some analysts started mocking us as Chicken Eagles.
"Nigeria has passed through this international disgrace, yet some people are still playing the ostrich, burying their heads in the sand. Nigerians must hold NFA and Vogts responsible. In fact, if any prophet had told me that Eagles would fumble in Ghana, I would have called him a prophet of doom. But how wrong was I!"
As a coach, Chukwu said Vogts made heinous blunders, restricting the defenders to their own half of the pitch. Nigeria is not known for negative football but the man came with his alien tactics. What we saw in Ghana is just a show of individual talents playing without mission, he says.
"Vogts' credential, was over-bloated by the NFA. "The man is empty as we could see. He messed up the players and turned them to mere robots on the pitch telling the defenders not to pass the half-way line. That was why the players played as if they were not committed, as if they were conscripted to Ghana to play for Nigeria.
"We all know that we have a good team but they played without understanding and cohesion.There was no unity among the players. We even read in the newspapers that the Y???? even engaged themselves in fisticuffs. That's strange. It has never happened in the history of our participation in the Nations Cup. That's the more reason why the National Assembly should probe what went wrong in Ghana."
Chukwu is ready to donate the rope to hang the leadership of the NFA and Vogts for taking the team to Malaga, Spain for preparation.
He said that was where the rain of failure started to beat us.
"Can Vogts tell anybody that the NFA forced him to take the team to Malaga? Look, the National Assembly have to ask the man some questions before he leaves. As a coach, he has the right to choose wherever he wants for training camp, but he chose Malaga. And we paid for it. The entire nation was thrown into mourning. Some Nigerians even paid the supreme sacrifice with their lives."
Chukwu said the bane of football development in Nigeria is our administrators' penchant and respect for white coach. "Aside from their colour, these white coaches are not better than us," he said.
For instance, he told them that he was not going to stay in Nigeria, and they agreed. So, if he had told them he was not going to Malaga, NFA wouldn't have questioned him.
'In fact, there were clear indications that the players did not train in Malaga and nobody was ready to tell us the truth about it, so the buck of the blame should go to Vogts."
'Vogts is not technically sound, he was not hard on the players. remember during my days, in 2004, I had to send three players out of the camp for indiscipline. NFA wanted a white coach and they got one. In the past I took Eagles to win bronze. When I left, my boy, Austin, in 2006, took them to Egypt and they also won bronze, but today we have a white man. Yet, we can not even win bronze.
'For me, I don't advise that he should be sacked because, over the years, we have always hired and fired coaches, and it has not changed anything. The only way to move forward and develop our football is for the NFA to revisit Berti Vogt's contract by forcing him to stay in Nigeria. If he refuses he should be asked to go."