No, he is not -Ebi Egbe
Super Eagles manager, Gernot Rohr is at the moment the most discussed man in Nigerian football circles, no thanks to the recent poor run of his team. Before this week’s two legged AFCON qualifier against Sierra Leone, the Eagles also failed to impress in the international friendlies against Algeria and Tunisia in Austria. To many Nigerian football stakeholders the nation’s soccer governing body, NFF should not have renewed Rohr’s contract which expired mid this year. As things stand now, Rohr has a fresh mandate to qualify and lead Nigeria to the Cameroon 2021 AFCON as well as the Qatar 2022 World Cup. However against the backdrop of the team’s recent poor run, many of those who opposed his being given a fresh contract have renewed calls for his sack.
In any case, the Franco German tactician equally have admirers who believe he is not the problem of the team and as such should be given the needed support to deliver. Ex international, Felix Owolabi a staunch critic of Rohr is one of those who has written off Rohr. Owolabi, a member of the 1980 Green Eagles squad that won the Nations Cup on home soil said Rohr is technically and tactically deficient and as such should be fired. Owolabi wonders why the coach is always experimenting instead of building a solid team. “If after four years Rohr can’t give us a solid team, then he has nothing to offer. He has refused to look inwards, he doesn’t believe in our home based players.
We can’t have a strong team without the home lads,” Owolabi stated. Fan Ndubuoke, a veteran journalist not impressed with Rohr’s performance told The Nigerian Xpress Sports that Rohr is a “limited liability company with some Nigerians as share holders. This is why they are keeping him. Unfortunately, this is the way we roll in this part of the world,” Ndubuoke said. Stadium facilities expert Ebi Egbe however disagrees with those who want Rohr sacked. Egbe who is the CEO of Monimichelle said nobody should expect the Eagles to do well in a country where there a poor playing turfs. “If we have a national team of home based players they will do well, but with this Overseas based players forget it. Our players are now used to fine turfs out there in Europe, so if we want to get the best out of them we must invest in good playing turfs with zero undulation.
You can clearly see Rohr’s team play better when they play in Europe. We need to do proper analysis and know where our problem lies. I can tell you that Rohr is the not the problem of the team,” Egbe said. London based Nigerian sports journalist, Osasu Obayuwana is also not one of those that has joined the sack Rohr now bandwagon. Obayuwana, a lawyer believes Rohr has done well if statistics and record are anything to go by. “Rohr may not be the cup of tea for many people, but it’s my view that he has certainly not been a failure, based on his record in competitive games for the national team,” were Obayuwana’s words.
Germany’s humiliation: I don’t know what went wrong –Low
Germany’s national team coach, Joachim Low has declared that he is yet to come to terms with what happened Tuesday night in Sevilla, Spain where he led the former world champions to her worst defeat in football. Speaking after the 6-0 bashing of his side, Low said… “I don’t know what really happened.” Low who was quick to add that he still trusts in the players said what the situation calls for is taking of stocks…”Today we saw that we are not as far ahead in our development as we had thought and expected after the last games.” Interestingly the coach is not in any danger of losing his job if signals coming out the German football House are anything to go by. Germany’s national team director Oliver Bierhoff who spoke after the match said Low won’t be fired as a result of the scandalous defeat. “This game changes nothing. We still trust Joachim Löw, no doubt about that. With the national team, you have to think and analyse from tournament to tournament. We want to achieve the maximum at next year’s Euros,” Bierhoff said. Germany needed only a draw to progress to the Nations League semi-finals but the result ensured Spain advanced as the top-ranked team in the group
Bolt: Why I can’t stage a comeback
Whenever Usain Bolt watches athletics competitions he feels the urge to return to the sport he dominated for a decade, but that long- ing quickly dissipates once he reminds himself of “all the training” he would have to undergo to compete at the highest level. The eight-time Olympic champion, who was a guest at the Marca Sport Weekend on Friday (November 13) from his home in Jamaica, confessed that around a year and a half ago he discussed the possibility of a comeback with his coach. “We sat down and actually spoke a little bit about coming back, maybe for the Olympics. But my coach was like he knows I’m not going to be serious. He said ‘you could talk about it but I know you are not going to be that serious because you hate training so I know you are not going to do it’,” the Jamaican recalled. Bolt retired from track and field three years ago but has kept his place as the fastest man in history with his 100m world record of 9.58 seconds still seemingly beyond reach. Although he believes the 100m and 200m events are “in good hands” with the likes of Noah Lyles doing “pretty well”, Bolt does not ex