Super Eagles’ Sunday Oliseh
Sunday Oliseh, Nigeria’s new national coach, has resumed work with the Nigerian national team in the past week.

His first assignment will be the match against Tanzania in a few weeks’ time.
In order to justify replacing Stephen Keshi, Sunday Oliseh must be seen to be of different stock. He has not disappointed in that regard. His composure, confidence, language and message have all revealed a man who appears to know exactly what he is doing. Everything he has said and done since his arrival has resonated well with Nigerians.
Then he released his team list of players to be invited for the assignment. And I got worried.
Looking at the list I could almost read how his mind is working.
Playing a team like Tanzania provides him a perfect opportunity to raise a new Super Eagles team with a distinct character from the one that failed in the latter part of Keshi’s tenure.
Dropping Mikel Obi and Victor Moses, two of the most experienced Nigerian players in the world currently, sends a very strong signal about his intentions. He is not going to be sentimental and dance to the tune of superstar players. With him, reputation counts for nothing, and current performance counts for everything. That appears to be his philosophy.
Oliseh stated that he has not found any exceptionally gifted Nigerian players in his global search, and that this is a reflection of the quality of the domestic league producing them.
So, in making do with whatever good players are available, he would build a solid, disciplined and organised team that will be committed to the mission at hand and hungry to succeed.
Tanzania have never been and are definitely not a threat to Nigeria in African football. Over two legs they cannot defeat even the worst assembly of Super Eagles drawn from any assembly of Nigerian players.
With all due respect, therefore, Tanzania are a perfect platform to launch Oliseh’s first assignment as coach of Nigeria’s national team. Winning will instil confidence in him and the new players. The real tests obviously still lie ahead, when the big teams come, but he needs a good launchpad in order to take off.
So, with Tanzania, Oliseh can afford to try out new players and start the development of a new style of play, utilising the natural endowments of Nigerian players - physique, speed and power - to the best advantage.
So, why am I worried?
I am worried because Oliseh must get it right first time. Nigerians do not have patience for any kind of failure.
And to do so, and convincingly too, he would require a good theatre for his assembly to perform as a disciplined team following a well-structured script on the field of play.
Nigerian teams in the past have played and won on poor grounds but were successful on the strength of exceptionally gifted individual players and their performances. They are not in Oliseh's team.
It is that simple, yet only a deep and discerning technical mind would appreciate fully why this should worry anyone particularly the coach.
The better the grass, the better the ground, the better the game.
I look around Nigeria at the present time and I start to really worry.
Where would Oliseh’s Super Eagles play their home matches? Neither Port Harcourt, nor Kaduna, nor even Uyo is good enough. None of these stadia has a pitch as good as the poorest football ground among the 35 on the campus of the University of Manchester in the UK. It is as bad as that.
That’s why I worry also for Sunday Oliseh.