By Adewale Ajayi

The race for who becomes the next chief coach of the Flying Eagles, Nigeria’s U-20 male national team, seems to have been narrowed down to just two top candidates, one from the South South and the other from the North.

At one point, president of the Nigeria coaches association Laddan Bosso was looking good for the job until sanity prevailed. Bosso is now being considered for the role of technical director as he wants to concentrate fully on his new job with Adamawa United which is almost a done deal.

With Bosso now out of the way, Paul Aigbogun faces stiff competition from one of his assistants at the 2019 edition of the FIFA Under 20 World Cup, in the person of Abdu Maikaba, who has the added responsibility of helping the Jos based club negotiate their way through to the group stage of the CAF champions league.

Relationship between Maikaba and Aigbogun went sour during the African Under 20 qualifier and the world cup proper in Poland, as he accused the former Warri Wolves and Enyimba Fc head coach of not carrying his assistants along in team selection and planning.

Now, the former school teacher is poised for the untimate position of head coach as he hopes to bring his wealth of experience to test with the Under 20 National team of Nigeria.

NFF president Amaju Pinnick is however tilting towards Aigbogun who incidentally was the most successful Nigerian coach of 2019 after leading the flying eagles to a Silver medal finish at the All African games. He also managed a quarter final exit at the Under 20 world cup, making it a brilliant year for a man who has spent the last 4 months in the United Kingdom updating his knowledge of the game.

These achievements are far better than Gernot Rohr’s first round exit at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and a third place finish at the 2019 Nations Cup in Egypt.

The Delta born football tactician has promised to work with any assistant coach on the recommendation of the Nigeria football federation and already, US based Micheal Nsien and Enyimba of Aba chief coach Fatai Amao are two men on the shortlist as assistants to Aigbogun.

Maikaba may be considered for the Under 23 National team but that will not be happening soon as there are no competitions ahead for the team following their failure to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games.