The decision by the NFF in the last week to retain Austin Eguavoen in the role of Interim Head Coach of the Super Eagles has become a cause-célèbre among fans and various stakeholders.
Fans feel shortchanged that the highly publicized but ultimately fruitless and protracted plan of the NFF to engage the services of a highly qualified high profile expatriate coach over many months led to the installation of unpopular Eguavoen, albeit on a temporary basis: the wounds of Eguavoen's recent failed Afcon and World Cup qualification campaigns left terrible scars.
It has to be sounded out that a healthy throng of Super Eagles fans welcome Eguavoen's continuation and even clamour for his announcement as the permanent coach and solution.
For me, this whole coaching matter has been utterly botched embarrassingly by the inept NFF. For crying out loud, it should not be an expedition to Pluto and Mars for a credible Football Federation to land a credible coach for the Super Eagles.
As we are where we are, the only manageable aspect of keeping Eguavoen are his backroom staff. Capable local coaches Fidelis Ilechukwu, Daniel Ogunmodede, Olatunji Baruwa, and foreign Fitness Trainer Tomaz Zorec seem a capable bunch.
Between them they should be able to rise up to the challenges ahead as they did by bruising Benin and repressing Rwanda in September's Afcon qualifiers.
But I have huge reservations though due to Eguavoen's proclivity to run out of tactical juice and ideas in crucial periods thereby falling on his tactical arse; and tendency of his Super Eagles to exhibit defective attention to tactical details the longer Eguavoen stays in post.
Hopefully this time around, things will be technically handled differently with more sustainable positive outcomes if he has truly learnt lessons from recent mishaps from his missteps.
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