By Colin Udo
It has been a turbulent last few days for the Super Eagles, ending with a 2-0 loss to Congo DR in Thursday night's friendly.
A disagreement between captain
Vincent Enyeama and coach Sunday Oliseh ended with the former calling time on
his international career and the latter vilified and having his man management
skills questioned by the majority of fans and media.
Contrary to initial reports,
Enyeama's late arrival to camp was not the issue at the root of the
confrontation, but Oliseh's decision to hand the Super Eagles captain's arm
band to Ahmed Musa.
Enyeama reported to camp after
attending his late mother's funeral, and according to both player and coach, he
was given a good reception
"They were already at training
when I arrived, so I drove down to the field to meet them," Enyeama told
ESPNFC. "The coach welcomed me, we had a group hug and took
pictures."
"We were very happy to see
him," Oliseh weighed in. "He had just buried his mum and to be
honest, I didn't even expect him to be in camp. I thought he would call and say
he was staying back to deal with family issues.
"We are Africans and we know
that times like this, a lot of family stuff comes up, and for someone like him,
it would be even harder. So he could have been excused if he had stayed
back."
Enyeama took it a different way
"He said he was surprised to
see me. That he didn't expect me to come that's why he invited four
goalkeepers. Then why invite me, then?"
At the post dinner team meeting
that evening, Oliseh laid into his players, furious that they had not shown
enough fire and hunger in training.
At the end, he announced that he
had taken a decision to keep Ahmed Musa, who had been acting in Enyeama's
absence, as team captain.
Taken aback by the news, Enyeama
says he stood up to ask for an explanation.
"I couldn't understand it, but
to tell you the truth, I have no problems with not being captain. What I found
odd was that as a captain and player who had played for 13 years, I should have
been accorded the respect of the coach calling me into his room to tell me he
was taking such a decision.
"He is the coach and he does
not need to explain to me why he is choosing a different captain. But the way
he announced it was humiliating for me and I wanted to stand up and ask him why
he did so."
Enyeama was not allowed to speak.
"He told me to sit down and
not say anything. But I insisted calmly that I have earned the right to speak.
"He told me that if I insisted
on speaking, either the team would leave the hall for me, or I would have to
leave. When I continued speaking, he walked to the door, opened it and asked me
to leave the camp."
Oliseh explains why
"I told him that this was not
the right time. That we could discuss it later. But he kept insisting loudly
that he wanted to talk. So I told him we could either leave the hall for him,
or he would have to leave.
"When he continued, I opened
the door and asked him to leave.
"Some of the other players,
Musa, Emenike, Mikel and Onazi were holding him and asking him to calm down.
You can confirm from any of them.
"At no point did security get
anywhere near him. Unless the players I mentioned above are now security."
NFF President Amaju Pinnick called
in from Nigeria, spoke to both coach and player and resolved the issue, with
Oliseh agreeing to allow Enyeama stay in camp.
The goalkeeper himself, who had
made up his mind to leave, was persuaded to stay
Musa and the other players
continued playing peacekeepers, shuttling between both men's rooms, even trying
to get Oliseh to change his mind and reinstate Enyeama in the interest of
peace.
But the coach would not budge. He
told ESPNFC why he took the decision
"When I took over as coach,
Enyeama was the first person I went to see. I drove to Lille, took him out to
lunch and discussed my plans and philosophy going forward.
"While we were talking, he
mentioned his plans to retire in about a year or two. I told him I was building
a team and he should not talk about retirement now.
"On three separate occasions
when we talked, including before the Tanzania game, he kept talking about retirement.
That was when I made up my mind to appoint a captain I could count on for the
long run.
"I cannot have a captain who
is thinking about retirement. I want one who will lead the team into the
future. That's why I took that decision."
Pinnick's call appeared to have
soothed nerves with the NFF even sending out a press release that all was now
well in the camp.
Things took a turn for the worse
the next morning when Enyeama made an Instagram post which suggested his late
mother had been insulted.
That set Oliseh off and things went
irretrievably downhill from there
"At no point did I say
anything, not a single word about his late mother. That was just a blatant lie
and attempt at character assassination.
"If he wanted to retire, he
should have just said so, not to start making up stories."
Oliseh called out Enyeama in the
team bus
"He told me he did not know
me, did not care to know me and did not think I was important to his team. That
was when I decided to leave for good. If the coach doesn't want me, there is no
point.
"So I trained with the team as
Carl Ikeme was the only other goalkeeper. When Dele Alampasu arrived, I went to
his room, told him I was retiring and left."
It is a sad end to an illustrious
career and a messy situation that could have been avoided with a little more
care.
And it all comes down to
communication and patience. Both men corroborate each other'so account of
events, but their point of departure is their understanding and interpretation
of each other's motives.
On a general note however, what is
clear is that there were three major failings.
As coach, Oliseh is under no
obligation to, but should have called Vincent and Musa privately to explain the
baton change.
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