Finidi blames Kanu-led Enyimba management for African Football League disaster

Finidi George’s Enyimba team appeared unprepared and lacked a strategic approach during the first leg of their match against Wydad Casablanca at Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo, and this parlayed to the second leg, where they were simply blown away 3-0, losing 4-0 on aggregate.

The Enyimba manager has come out to blame the Nwankwo Kanu-led management team for the debacle. In an exclusive interview with some journalists on Monday, the 1994 Nations Cup winner revealed that the Enyimba management was not intent on doing well, taking into cognisance the recruitment of players, of which he knew only a little.

“Out of 19 new players that were brought in, I had knowledge of only four of them. When I saw the quality of the players that were brought, I called Ifeanyi Ekwueme, the sporting director, and asked what the target for the season was. He said it is just to stabilise in the league, as the focus is to settle down first.

Enyimba management had come out last week to say they were intent on changing the fortunes of the team that won the NPFL title last season. The management restated its commitment while emphasising its preparedness to take decisive action if there is no rapid improvement in the results of the team.

But George’s bombshell remarks turn the tide against the Kanu-led management team.

Management recruited players without coaches’ inputs

George continued, “Ideally, before registering players for any competition, the coaches must be consulted to submit the list. But that wasn’t the case here. For whatever flimsy reason, we were not consulted, and they did the registration themselves. As a result, some of the players we would have needed were not registered.

“It was much later that the sporting director just sent us the list of players that they had already registered. “After the first leg, they dropped some players from travelling for the second leg in Casablanca, claiming that they couldn’t get them visas. We had to protest it strongly before it was rectified.

“We later found out that there was more to it. Can you imagine that we went for such a game without the goalkeeping and fitness coaches?

“Myself and Yema were the only coaches that travelled for that game. That is very strange to me. Everyone has to put the interest of the club first because until this is done, we would only be joking.

Training arrangements in Uyo were bungled

“We arrived in Uyo on 17 October with the idea to have as many training sessions as possible on the grass pitch since we are more used to our synthetic pitch. But we couldn’t really achieve that because the management failed to make the right arrangements with the stadium authorities.

“As a result, we improvised and had one of our training sessions at a primary school, while another training session was cut short because of the same poor arrangements.

“In fact, we played a team that was more used to the playing surface than us, the home team. It was obvious that we were at a disadvantage as a team used to artificial pitches, and this really affected us. Also, we had only three training with the AFL match ball while our opponents had enough time to get used to it.”

Throughout the match, Enyimba players attempted to score from very long distances, ranging from 40 to 60 yards away from the Wydad goal, which showed that the team, despite their obvious efforts, lacked a well-structured style of play based on video analysis.

“That was why you could see my players struggling with their control, passing, and shooting,” George continued explaining. “It is sad to see such statements being released when all hands should be on deck and things should be more organised to enable a positive environment for all.

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“Yes, there have been issues, but I remained patient because I believed that we could harmonise efforts and work things out, but here we are.

“The issue with the team is obvious, and it has nothing to do with the coaches. The same coaches won the league with fewer goals conceded and the highest goals scored.

“We won the best Super 6 ever organised, scored the highest, and conceded the least number of goals,” Finidi George concluded.

In summary, Enyimba seemed taken aback by the way the Moroccan side dominated the match and scored when it mattered. Performances like these hark back to the days when Nigerian teams were apprehensive about facing North African teams.