WHERE EAGLES DARE

JOSE PESEIRO WAS JUST THE LATEST COACH TO FIND MANAGING NIGERIA AN ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TASK, WRITES OSASU OBAYIUWANA...

- OSASU OBAYIUWANA

WITH the distinguished record of coaching Nigeria’s Super Eagles to every Africa Cup of Nations medal available – silver in 1990, bronze in 1992 and the gold medal and trophy in 1994 – the Dutchman Clemens Westerhof, nearly 84, knows a thing or two about what it takes to manage the national team in Africa’s most populous country.

“A manager with no backbone and an aversion for conflict cannot work as coach of the national team… On my back, I had to have the skin of an elephant [to work in Nigeria],” Westerhof said.

Nicknamed the ‘Dutchgerian’ during his five-year stay in Nigeria between 1989 and 1994 for his uncanny ability, as a European, to understand and adapt to Nigeria’s complex culture quirks and football officials, he remains, 30 years later, the most successful Super Eagles coach in history, having also led the team to a maiden World Cup qualification in 1994.

One incident, during their final World Cup qualifier against Algeria in Algiers, in 1993, sticks in Westerhof’s memory.

“During our final qualifying game, Chief Akinyele (the chairman of Nigeria’s National Sports Commission) came into our dressing room at half-time, on the pretext of giving the boys a pep talk.

“He had the guts to say that my players were playing like pregnant women, even when we had a 1-0 lead,” Westerhof recalls.

Westerhof’s disgust with Akinyele was so visceral that he could barely contain his rage. After confirming from the sports chief that he had finished speaking to the players, he slammed the dressing room shut, as Akinyele had barely left the room.

But for the military vice-president of Nigeria at the time, Augustus Aikhomu, with whom Westerhof had walk-in privileges, Westerhof would have lost his job over the incident.