By Amaechi Agbo

A former Special Adviser to erstwhile Kano State Governor, Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwakwnaso, Alhaji Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, has stated that former Super Eagles coach, Clemens Westerhof remains the most successful foreign coach in Nigeria.

Mr Gombe who said this in an interview with Bestchoicesports.com.ng on the celebration of the 79^th birthday of the Dutch coach on May 3^rd, 2019, said that unlike current Super Eagles coach who stated variously publicly that Nigeria local players are not good enough to merit invitation to the national team, Clemens Westerhof during his five-year period with the Super Eagles, developed the squad from the local league.

The former Gombe State FA Chairman who described the current NPFL as a mere competition, said that Gernot Rohr has not visited NPFL league venues to watch for players unlike his successor, Westerhof who traversed the league venues in search of players for the national team.

“Remember, Rohr, Super Eagles coach, said that he has never seen any good player in our league. Some of us disagreed with him because his job is to bring them out and develop them. But that is the different between him and Clemens Westerhof. Westerfhof to me is one of the most successful foreign coaches we have in Nigeria; if not the most successful. He developed a team over five years. From Algiers 1990 to USA 1994.

“Any time there is a league match in the country, you will see Westerhof going to Calabar to watch the Calabar Rovers and pick players there, he would go to Jos to see Plateau United play their match and pick players. He had gone to Kaduna to see Ranchers Bees play a league match; he had gone to Makurdi to watch BCC Lions of Gboko and to Minna to watch Niger Tornadoes. He has gone to Maidugri to watch Elkanemi. That is where he got Finidi George, Tijani Babanginda, Daniel Amokachi, Moses Kpako, Garba Lawal, Abdul Amino and others. Rohr has never gone beyond Abuja and Lagos; maybe the farthest place he has gone are Warri or Uyo and that is all.

“At Westerhof’s time, we had a league that was bringing up players because they have the opportunity to ply in the national team. But subsequent coaches, based on the body languages of the NFA/NFF ignored the league. They only stay and select players in the media. Any player who has more dollar to give a pressman to promote him, even if he does not play well for his club in the weekend, they will praise him and push him everywhere.

“So it has become a criterion that the fastest way to play for the national team is to play abroad because that is where we are concentrating. We don’t go to the grassroots.

“The last time South Africa beat us 2-0 in Uyo two years ago, I said I can assemble a Super Eagles team from the local league that can beat the Super Eagles team that day.

“Again, we have a coach who claims to be versatile but I tell you, Rohr does not have a programme for the national team. He is technically deficient. He does not know anything. He is supposed to develop all the national teams because he should have a transition programme. But since he does not believe in the local players, that is the end of it.

“Let me tell you, Rohr has never won any match for Nigeria. All the matches that you see we are winning during the qualifiers, are matches that NFF found a way to manipulate. How they do it I don’t know but not the work of the coach. Just because they want to qualify, we do dirty things to qualify. That’s is why after we qualified for the World Cup, all our friendly matches, we lost them. How can a team that qualified for the World Cup and claimed all the victories then capitulate and lost all the four World Cup warm up matches? You saw our performance at the World Cup. It shows that our officials did some dirty things in which some of us know what happened off the pitch to make sure Nigeria won all her matches. We know what happened.

“Look at the game against Zambia in Uyo. Zambia technically beat us but their goal was cancelled. They were supposed to win that game or play a draw. But referees did what they did. Let’s face the reality,” he said.