Nigeria will play an "A" list team in France with an indigenous coach at the helm for the time in a while.
Our local coaches appear to have this temerarious , devil-may-care attitude. They still hold on to this 1990s romanticism of the Super Falcons/Eagles being a force of nature, not only in Africa, but in world football.
So, they tend to unleash the Super Falcons like a pack of Alsatian dogs to devour all comers regardless of the pedigree of the opposition.
Justin Madugu is no exception.
So, I am so looking forward to this encounter against France.
I don't mean to take a swipe at foreign coaches but they can be overly cautious and defensive which doesn't always allow our players to fully express themselves. In their eyes, Nigerian players are not as technically astute and the administrative infrastructure of the NFF is not robust enough to allow the Super Falcons play open, expansive and free-flowing brand of football.
Which is why I think a large body of Super Falcons fans welcome the approach of indigenous coaches who are unencumbered with such thoughts and feel the Super Falcons players have the technical nous to go toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world. I have my doubts but a part of me does embrace this line of thinking which was why I had hoped and prayed that Finidi George would have - against all odds - succeeded with the Super Eagles. I still sort of harbour vicarious regrets for him.
Football has evolved from the practical to the technical. Our indigenous coaches, who are still playing catch-up to modern methods, are way too practical and (in my view) our players - home or foreign based, indigenous or dual nationality - collectively are not as technically sound as we fans believe or would like them to be. And the NFF's management of our football is not gold standard which to me support the cautious approach of foreign coaches. I appreciate this view about our players being a few ingredients short of the ideal Jollof rice technically is not a popular view but it was not stated to court popular acceptance - I am just stating my mind.
So, whilst I see the thinking guiding the approach of foreign coaches, I also tend to welcome the free-thinking approach of local coaches which is always a breath of fresh air to me.
I felt some players had their developments stalled and disturbed under Randy Waldrum - again, this is not me throwing Waldrum under the bus, I still very much hold him in high esteem and believe he did a fabulous job, by and large, with the Super Falcons.
But players were often played out of position under him and other players who weren't fan favorites played too many games ahead of the likes of Gift Monday. Also, the bulk of the class of 2022 Flamingos and Falconets failed to experience speedy Super Falcons breakthrough under the American.
If Deborah Abiodun (the least exciting) of that class could become a World Cup megastar at the first time of asking, it stands to reason that very many of those other gifted, enterprising and promising U-20 and U-17 players were allowed to wither-on-the-vine of exclusion and left out in the cold.
Madugu now has the platform to excel, starting with his first major test.
Let's see how "our own" will fair with an exciting collection of home and foreign based players to pick from. His victories with the Super Falcons have been against modest teams, against France is where he will need to prove his onions, prove he deserves the job on a permanent basis and prove he can take the team places they've never been before.
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