MY F/EAGLES STARS ARE BARELY AVERAGE!

Flying Eagles coach Samson Siasia has declared that the players he paraded as the best Nigeria can offer at the U-20 level are barely average players who,as they are now cannot make it to the Super Eagles.

The coach said they need to do a lot of work before being able to challenge for places in the senior national team – even if they are struggling to qualify for the 2010 World Cup.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult because you need players who are tactically very sound,” he said.
“If they’re asked to do things, they have to carry out instructions on the field of play and you can see from our play that we don’t do that.
“I think it’s going to be a long way for them to get into the Super Eagles.”

The coach is also at a loss how ‘his barely average players gave up the lead twice and eventually lost to Germany in a match they dominated both in terms of possession and chances created.

‘It’s hard. We scored twice for the first time in the tournament but it still wasn’t enough. At the end we were a man up but we were still having problems. When you lead twice, you need to preserve that lead, and we didn’t do that. My team were too disorganized to keep their shape’,said Siasia.

The Bayelsa state born tactician
insists the whole team must take responsibility for the loss to 10-man Germany which ensured their exit from the championships.
Siasia blasted his players for failing to follow instructions in the game.

“For the first time we scored two goals after playing four games, but now we’ve found out we can’t defend,” he said.
“All I did was to tell them to keep possession.
“You can’t keep kicking long balls when you only have one man up.
“But they didn’t even listen. You keep shouting all day – but if the players don’t listen to you, this is what actually happens.”
Siasia lead the Flying Eagles to second place in this event four years ago in the Netherlands, and accepted his share of the responsibility for what has been a disappointing performance in Egypt.

“I’m not going to blame players because I picked the players, so all the blame is on me, because if you have players who are not playing to instruction this is how you lose games,” he said.

He was also severely critical of the refereeing at the tournament – saying Germany’s winner in Suez sprang from a foul.
“The referee was five yards away [from the challenge] – and that was a foul, that was a foul,” he complained.
“They kicked him and took the ball and I don’t know why the referee allowed a chance like this – I think Fifa should do something about the referees too.
“Even though it’s the players fault, the referee has a lot to do about what actually happened too.”