Wilfred Ndidi powered Leicester City to English Premier League promotion last week with copius goals and assists this season.
History admonishes us that managers of high profile clubs hold this notion that indigenous Nigerian players are neither visionary nor intelligent enough to occupy attacking midfield positions. Hence most of our high profile indigenous midfielders player centre to defensive midfield positions in high caliber leagues: cases in point are Onyeka, Ndidi (until recently) and retired Mikel Obi.
But these managers are wrong – dead wrong.
It is no surprise that Ndidi has shone like a million stars in just one season as an attacking midfielder (in England)when he found a coach that failed to embrace the notion of Nigerian players not being clued-up enough to function in the attacking midfield role.
Where is this all leading to?
Rather than continue to focus our search on dual nationality attacking midfielders who might prove to be lightweight in African football like Joe Aribo, perhaps a shrewd Super Eagles coach can scour lower leagues (like Czech, Hungary, Bulgaria or Turkey division 2 for example) for rugged, fluid attacking midfielders who are only in those leagues because managers in top clubs fail to give them a look-in.
It is no coincidence that Sunday Mba (NPFL) eclipsed Nosa Ighiebor (Spanish La Liga) in the 2013 afcon in attacking midfield. Quite a lot of physically strong and mentally dialled in Nigerian midfielders are just waiting to be plucked from the tree of lower league football to wreck havoc for Nigeria.
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