Ex-international, Friday Ekpo, has urged Super Eagles Technical Adviser, Gernot Rohr, to change his tactics by drafting in steaming hot players in the local league, to scale through
the qualifier against age-long rival, Cameroon, and subsequently book a place in the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The make-or-mar match holds in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State on September 1.
Ekpo, in assessing the build-up to the Nigeria-Cameroon cracker, said, after losing at home for the first time to the Bafana Bafana of South Africa in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in Uyo, recently, Rohr now needs a complete turn-around, to justify the confidence reposed in him by the Nigeria Football Federation bigwigs.
It is generally believed that Eagles’ defence and the goalpost were porous against South Africa in the last match.
“The Franco-German coach needs to swallow his pride and visit some of the Nigeria
Professional Football League venues to pick some players capable enough to change the fortunes of the national team,” he counselled.
According to Ekpo, it is time for Rohr to go into real business as a coach and get needed replacement for lack-lustre players, which he can achieve from the ranks of good players in the Nigerian premier league.
However, three home-based players, namely FC Ifeanyi Ubah’s goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa; Mountain of Fire and Miracles midfielder, Ifeanyi Ifeanyi, and Ibrahim Alhassan of Akwa United were among the players invited by Rohr on Tuesday to feature against Cameroon.
Other prominent names in the list are China-based John Mikel Obi, Chelsea’s Victor Moses, Leon Balogun, William Troost-Ekong, Elderson Echiejile, Shehu Abdulahi, Chidozie Awaziem, Odion Ighalo, Wilfred Ndidi, Oghenekaro Etebo and John Ogu.
Anthony Nwakaeme, Kelechi Iheanacho, Alex Iwobi are also expected in Uyo.
But Ekpo said much needed to be done in concentrating efforts on local talents who would only be complemented by foreign-based players.
He said Nigeria had enough players to constitute the new national team “if Rohr would be ready to do the right thing.”
“Rohr has not been doing his job in the right sense of it. He had been selecting ready-made players to play our matches and getting positive results from it.
“The match against South Africa exposed him and now, he should look for players and tell them what to do. He should create his team from the league. The foreign-based players will disappoint him again because all of them are battling with their respective clubs’ assignments.
“They just resumed with their clubs in Europe and will not have one hundred percent commitment for the national team; so we are going to be in trouble against Cameroon if we did not act now and get a standby team from the NPFL,” Ekpo said.
Recently, FIFA had to postpone the World Cup qualifier earlier billed for August against Cameroon till September 1.
Ekpo said it would help Rohr to make amendment and look for a way out of the problems.
“Thank goodness, Rohr was in Kano with the CHAN Eagles. He should use that platform to look at the team and possibly visit the league venues to get good goalkeepers and defenders.
Those who made their marks in the national team were products of the local league. I can say that I was one of the products of the local league,” he stressed.
