A few days ago, a new coach was hired for the Super Eagles, the national football team of Nigeria.
Under normal circumstances, it would be considered too soon to start any controversial discourse on the man. However, the shrouded process of the appointment, the timing of it, and the calibre of the person engaged following one of the worst periods in Nigeria’s football history, have raised a lot of eyebrows. To be silent would be tantamount to lazy journalism.
He is foreign, a German. His name is Bruno.
The only famous Bruno in sports that I know of are Fernandez of Manchester United FC, and the British boxer. In coaching, not any of the known names in international football that would have silenced critics and sceptics avers to hiring any more foreign coaches in Africa in 2024 after all the previous failures.
So, Bruno who?
The appointment of a Bruno Labbadia, therefore, came as a complete surprise to everyone (except, of course,those that must have been behind the deal). There must be some kind of deal in this new arrangement. That’s the only way to understand the rationale for a football administration to dare at this time to present to Nigerians a totally unknown coach, straight from the blue, completely outside the radar of even the most ardent football followers.
Bruno’s choice immediately attracts interest. The current relatively subdued debates on the issue are a result of the ‘shock’ of the audacity of the NFF administration to present, without clear reasons and motivation, a low-level foreign coach without international recognition or solid credentials after the unconvincing performances by several foreign coaches with better credentials, including Jose Paseiro, to Nigerians.
This is not even good to stick to the doctrine of a foreign coach given the outcry over previous dismal failures marked by a desert of trophies. The impression most Nigerians had after Paseiro’s ouster is that any new appointment would pass through microscopic lenses and scrutiny. For any foreign coach to be hired would as difficult as a ‘camel passing through the eye of a needle’. I had assumed that an unknown foreign coach would never again be unleashed on Nigerians. I now humbly concede naivety.
There are too many boxes that any prospective new coach would have to tick.
The person must be renowned internationally; must have clear and solid records of achievements to show in football; must be grounded in African football and footballers, either as a coach or even as a player; must have the reputation as a former player or as a coach to earn the immediate respect of the big superstars in the Eaglesand the critical Nigerian public.
Does Bruno Labbadia tick any of the boxes?
The Super Eagles are a very troubled team.
The team has not done well for several years in all competitions. The last AFCON in January/February this year was a punctuation mark with performances, since then, that make their commendable achievement look like a fluke. At AFCON 2023, they defied all the odds, rode on the back of some decent performances and got to the finals of the African Championship.
Since then, however, there has been a huge slump in performance, disturbing to the extent that the coach of the team, even after being lavishly celebrated and rewarded (prematurely it now seems), was sent ‘packing’ with the refusal to renew his contract.
The Super Eagles now face many challenges. The most glaring is that the team lacks depth in quality of players that can lift it above the present plateau where the team has remained for well over a decade, unable to win any major trophies, and not convincing anyone of its once-undisputed status as a giant in African football. Smaller countries that the Super Eagles used to devour for ‘breakfast’ have suddenly become their Nemesis. Some have even defeated the Super Eagles on their home turf, something that was once considered ‘impossible’!
With this new appointment of Bruno, my feeling is that the NFF has taken on a big gamble.
The expectation was that any new coach must start to win from Day One, and that there will be no excuses or time for a honeymoon. Nigerian coaches were not given any such luxury.
As Bruno Labbadia resumes and takes charge, his previous ‘record’ of never winning any trophy in his almost 30 years career as a coach, amounts to nothing. It will not serve as an acceptable excuse should he fail to deliver by defeating the Cheetahs of Benin Republic next week in a 2025 AFCON-qualifying match to be played in Uyo, Nigeria. The match has tension and grudge written all over it.
Gernot Rohr, the last German coach that was sacked by Nigeria some years ago, now leads the Cheetahs for this sequel against the Super Eagles.
He came a few months ago and inflicted the defeat on the Super Eagles that fast-tracked Jose Paseiro’s exit from Nigeria. That defeat was one of the worst and most humiliating in Nigerian football history. It must not happen again!
Unfortunately, even as the team list for the match was released during the week, it showed that Bruno would still be working with most of the same set of players that could not lift Nigerian football higher in the past decade. Is there some ‘magic’ that he would perform with the players within the one week that he has before the match?
There is also a second match within days against Rwanda in Kigali, another mountain that the new coach will have to climb to clear the cloud before the eyes of Nigerians about a certain coach from ‘nowhere’ leading their prized Super Eagles.
These two matches are critical for Bruno’s survival as the coach of the national team, and for the NFF itself as a board. Nigerians are waiting and watching.
Meanwhile, for academic reasons only, it will be interesting to know the value of Bruno’s contract, the duration of the contract, the target(s) set for him, who pays his wages between the sports ministry and the federation, foreign assistants (will he make use of local coaches), and so on.
The more I look at all this matter of Bruno Labbadia, the more I see it as one huge gamble by the NFF.