2015 Afcon aftermath:Uzokwe calls for grass-root base Home Eagles

2015 Afcon aftermath:Uzokwe calls for grass-root base Home Eagles
By Eddie Akalonu
Following Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the African cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea next year, Ex-international Evans Uzokwe has said that the country will have no option than a return to building a national team made up wholly of players based here in Nigeria, saying it is a means to ending the stigma of being held hostage by players based abroad. As a former player, my first observation of the Eagles was that five or six days are too short a time to mould a team and play. I had predicted we may not qualify for Afcon because it was devoid of sentiment and honest I saw a team that was in too much of a hurry in every game that we played and in the process were incoherent in defense, mid-field and attack “They lacked character, unity, there was no team cohesion and I saw that each player presented the attitude and style of the country in the club he plays. And if a coach lacks technical skill to mould an array of players into a unit, definitely there is problem,”Uzokwe, who rose to professional career high as Head of Service of Imo State Civil Service after stints at the defunct P and T Vasco da Gama of Enugu and Spartans of Owerri, warned football administrators this way “we had always depended on miracles to achieve certain things. Right now it is very obvious to us we can no longer live by miracles in football. We just must build, we must plan what we want to achieve. That is exactly what any country which has (football) as agent of youth development and empowerment carry on. We should do the same.  “my suggestion is, if we can go back to the past practice of building a team made up of players from grassroots and top clubs around the country, it would alleviate some problems we have, it would us fashion the Nigerian own football- character and pattern, so that when there is need to play we can easily invite some players from outside the country to team up with the home based and play. We will not depend 100 percent on players coming from abroad.