Adelabu faults Labbadia’s recruitment for Super Eagles

Former Green Eagles winger, Adegoke Adelabu, has lambasted the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) for hiring German tactician, Bruno Labbadia, for the Super Eagles, describing the development as a waste of time and resources.

The NFF announced Labbadia as the new Super Eagles handler in the early hours of Tuesday, making him the third coach for the senior national team this year, after Jose Peseiro and George Finidi.

Speaking with The Guardian, yesterday, Adelabu, a sports scientist, who played club football with IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan, said: “The NFF may have their own strategy in hiring another foreign coach for the Super Eagles, but let someone tell them that it is a waste of time and resources.

“We must know how to nurture and develop our own coaches. Enough of window shopping around the world for a trainer. Let us wait and see what will come out of it since there is no one supervising the NFF.” Adelabu, however, revealed that German coaches are technically physical and play very well from the wings.

“Our challenge is not where the coach is coming from, but the fact that we do not have any kind of football philosophy and also we have players that are always invited to national team irrespective of their current form.

“I played under two or three German coaches; Karl Heinz Marotzke and Gottlieb Goller and I had the opportunity to go on training tour of Germany. Infact, I was planning to study sports medicine in Germany with the help of Goller.

“The purpose of giving a foreign coach a Nigerian assistant is for continuity. How many styles of play do we have to adapt to when we keep looking for coaches all over the world?

“I think I have said it before when an English Premiership club kept playing Brazilian Juninho in a certain position contrary to that of Brazilian national team. It was the Chief Coach Dunga who threatened to remove the player from playing in the premiership if they continued to use him in that position contrary to his position in the national team. Do we have that kind of pedigree as a footballing nation?” Adelabu queried.