GERNOT ROHR’S ERA AS SUPER EAGLES MANAGER : THE GOOD AND THE BAD
By Sakiru Olopade
The Franco-German, Gernot Rohr, the longest serving Technical Adviser for the Super Eagles who was in charge of the National Team for 64 months was given a boot last Sunday by the Nigeria Football Federation led by Amaju Pinnick after Rohr, inspite of being the longest serving foreign manager had failed to win any silver ware for the African most populous Nation and one of the soccer giants in the Continent.
Before the appointment of Gernot Rohr, the Franco-German had handled some African national teams such as Gabon and a host of others though without any enviable track record.
However, Rohr came in when Nigeria was in a deer need of foreign coach to salvage the fortune of the Super Eagles that had failed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations in 2015 and 2017.
Gernot Rohr, then, qualified the Super Eagles for the African Cup of Nations -2019 in Egypt with a game to spare after playing 1-1 draw against South Africa on an away soil.
Under Gernot Rohr, the Super Eagles qualified for 2018 World cup in Russia with a game to spare too, bringing an end to the era of permutations on how or whether the Eagles would qualify for major tournament.
The Franco-German tactician recorded 28 wins, 13 draws and losing 13 matches in 54 games as Super Eagles Technical Adviser.
He won bronze medal at 2019 African Nation’s Cup in Egypt while he never lost any away match in both World cup and African Nation’s Cup qualifiers .
As beautiful as the records, however, as the time went on, Gernot Rohr’s performance began to dwindle as Super Eagles form became worrisome with lack-lustre display in most of their games.
The team, despite being together for a longer period, lack definite pattern as the team always adopted “kick and follow ” to the displeasure of many soccer-loving Nigerians.
During Gernot Rohr’s era, only few home based were given opportunity to dorn on the Super Eagles shirts as the foreign tactician never had the belief in home based players inspite of the fact that, there were home based players that can compete with the foreign based that most of them spent more time on the bench, unpatriotic and lack of zeal to play for the national team.
Gernot Rohr, equally lost two matches at home, against South Africa in Uyo in 2016 and recently lost to the unknown Central African Republic in the 2022 world cup qualifier at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos in October.
What an era of a man, the Franco-German Tactician as the Super Eagles Manager.