Nigeria Needs Proper Planning To Win Africa Cup Of Nations – Olofinjana

Former Super Eagles’ midfielder, Seyi George Olofinjana has served up a strong hint that the Nigerian team will not win this year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, because he believes they have not planned well enough for it, megasportsarena.com reports.

While stating the recent sack of Franco-German tactician, Gernot Rohr barely a month to the kick-off on January 9th in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Olofinjana opined that the usual ‘fire brigade approach’ Nigeria employs ahead of each competition will not augur well for the Eagles.

Olofinjana, who holds master’s degrees as a sports director and a project manager, with a first degree in engineering, made his mark playing at FF Kalmar of Norway as well as Stoke City, Hull City and Wolverhampton Wanderers of England.

He is now technical director at Grasshopper of Switzerland, following a similar post at Wolves, and runs Imperial Football Academy at his roots in Odogbolu, Ogun State, which keeps him active in technical issues about the round leather game, such that he acknowledges how Nigeria need to incorporate proper planning at all levels.

The dark-0skinned former holding midfielder stated further in an interview with BBC Sport that there is no short cut approach to winning laurels, to the extent that his scathing verdict is that the chances of the current set of Eagles winning AFCON 2021 are quite slim, as the country is yet to follow the right route to success.

“In the next two, three World Cups, we want to win it. What does it look like? What coach would fit into that strategy? What players would fit into that strategy?

“We need to start exposing our young players to major tournaments, so that when it comes to that third World Cup they will be ready and will have had the necessary exposure.

“Now, we talk about AFCON. What preparations have gone in prior to us trying to see if we can win the Africa Cup of Nations?

“And even when we don’t win it, what next? There’s always something next. And for me, the succession plan of where we need to get to is what is missing,” Olofinjana concluded.