FK Senica striker Onome Sodje says the Nigeria Football Federation must apply Ghana‘s approach if it wants the Super Eagles to return to the top.
The Black Stars are a mixed blend of a large number of players from the Egypt 2009 U-20 World Cup winning squad and a few experienced players.
Sodje insists that is the solution to Nigeria‘s problems.
â€You can see what Ghana has done; they work hard for each other and their players from the U-20 team have a bright future. They have a good structure which allows them to bring up players from their youth team
“I think we need to regroup first of all. We need to have some new blood in the Eagles; some youngsters. There is a need for a mixture of players in the team.
â€I think Nwankwo Kanu was absolutely amazing against South Korea and it would have been interesting to have Obafemi Martins in the attack with him, because he is very fast. We need something like that in Eagles,†Onome, whose uncles Efe and Sam Sodje had played for Nigeria, said.
The Slovakia-based player added that the domestic league players should have been given a chance.
â€I have not been following the Nigerian league very closely but I know that there are lots of good players in Nigeria. I think there should be more than five home-based players in the squad for future tournaments.â€
On his assessment of African teams at the tournament, he said, â€I am disappointed with the way Cote d‘Ivoire played. They made their group a bit easy. I am impressed with South Africa as host nation as they did pretty well.
â€As for Nigeria, I believe if we get the right mentality and mixture, we will do well in the future. Cameroon disappointed me as well. I guess it‘s because they don‘t have a lot of star players in their team anymore.
â€Ghana is the only country still flying Africa flag and I hope they continue to do well in the tournament.â€