U.S men’s U-19 national team coach of Nigerian descent, Michael Nsien, has revealed what he will do differently if appointed coach for the vacant Super Eagles coaching job, Silvernews.com.ng reports.
The NFF advertised the country’s senior men’s national team coaching job last Friday, two weeks after Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro left the job on the expiration of his contract.
The 43-year-old is however confident that he has the best credentials to lead the team.
“If I am appointed as the national team coach, I will improve the balance of attack and defending. Nigeria is blessed with a generation of attacking players right now that we can’t waste playing defensive football especially if we are competing with our African counterparts, we should be able impose ourselves and be proactive about our style of play.
“Maybe when we play European or South American giants, we can adjust and twerk our styles but our players are doing it against Europe’s best players every weekend.
“We need to have confidence based on our style of play. We need to coordinate that from the senior team all the way to U-15. When we know the style of play, players that have those profiles will be coming to the youth national teams and feed the senior team.
“Right now, there is a huge disconnect of players that make it from the youth national team to the senior team. When we have good youth team’s tournament, the players go missing. We have to established how we are working from the senior coach to the youth national team coach. We have to have an infrastructure that work to repeat success over and over again.
“For me going to the national team set up, my plan will be more than they will be asking of me. My plan will be to overhaul the infrastructure to put processes in place so that we have a working order from top to bottom about how we achieve success and maintain that success.
“I really believe the senior team has a generational wealth of quality players and it has been to be highlighted by good tactics, getting the players in the right positions so that they can work together. We saw at AFCON that they were not playing together in a way that was cohesive to bring success. We all saw the quality of the playing wasn’t good enough.
“Since I have been working with the U.S federation, a lot of doors have been opening for me. I started briefly with the U-16, went to the U-19, senior team as an assistant and also be coaching the U-20 for world cup qualifiers. Things are going in a right direction.
“One thing people don’t understand is the resources U.S is putting into the sport. You can’t compare even the U.S second division to the NPFL at the moment. There are lot’s of changes that are happening in the United States. They have the top 20 leagues in the world, in terms of the national team, top 12, top 15. So to have these experiences to work with players in this level is being a blessing and gives me confidence that I know I can do it with Nigerian players as well.”
