By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (February 24th 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He taught the players and converted some like Odegbami to a position where he would influence the game more \u2013 in Odegbami\u2019s case from striker to winger. Otto Gl\u00f3ria was fortunate to inherit excellent foundations laid by Tihomir \u2018Tiko\u2019 Jelisav\u010di\u0107. The Yugoslav-born former player coached Nigeria from 1974-78.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, Nigeria failed to qualify for the World Cup in 1978 and the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) defeat to Uganda in the semi-final signalled the end for Jelisav\u010di\u0107. However, he had laid the foundations, and is held in very high esteem by Odegbami who refers to his former coach as \u2018Father Tiko.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jelisav\u010di\u0107 died in a car crash in M\u00e9xico in June 1986. In 1980 his successor, the Brasilian, Otto Gl\u00f3ria led Nigeria to their first AFCON title by building on the foundations built by Jelisav\u010di\u0107. Gl\u00f3ria took Nigeria to South America to learn the Brasilian way. By the time they returned, they had completed the task of abandoning the British model of football begun by Jelisav\u010di\u0107. They were playing more attractive football and they were more successful too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to independence in 1960 Nigeria began its rivalry with west-African neighbours Ghana. There\u2019s no doubt that in the early stages of the rivalry Ghana was on top. Ghana\u2019s Black Stars could even afford political interference of the worst kind \u2013 the 1966 coup at first. The roots of Dr Kwame Nkrumah\u2019s Football Revolution ere so strong that even after it the Black Stars reached two AFCON finals \u2013 their surprise defeat in the 1968 final was a self-inflicted wound. But Nigeria had its own political crisis \u2013 Biafra \u2013 and that affected its progress in football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigeria took a decade to begin to progress after their first appearance in the AFCON Finals (1963). They took their beatings \u2013 Sudan and the United Arab Republic (UAR), which was a short-lived union of Egypt and Syria \u2013 losing 4-0 and 6-3. It was a hard lesson that took years to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t until 1974 that Nigeria began to develop. Father Tiko took over the Nigerian team. Two years later he steered them to third place \u2013 progress. The same result in 1978 was considered a failure too many. Ghana\u2019s success for the third time allowed the Black Stars to keep the trophy outright \u2013 the first time any African nation had been allowed to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That, combined with Nigeria\u2019s defeat in the semi-final to Uganda, spelled the end for Jelisav\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Otto Gl\u00f3ria broke Nigeria\u2019s duck at AFCON and will always be credited for that \u2013 he deserves a large slice as he brought innovative football ideas to Nigeria and helped to implement those ideas \u2013 it became part of the Super Eagles\u2019 DNA, he had strong foundations to build on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jelisav\u010di\u0107 played a part \u2013 a large one \u2013 in shaping Nigeria\u2019s football identity. Breaking with the English way of playing was important. Odegbami waxes lyrical about Gl\u00f3ria and how he brought Brasilian football to Nigeria by bringing Nigeria to Brasil, he acknowledges the role of Jelisav\u010di\u0107 in giving the Brasilian a sound base to build on. The late Yugoslav deserves recognition and appreciation for facilitating Nigeria\u2019s success<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (February 24th 2021) The Architect He taught the players and converted some like Odegbami to a position where he would [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2589,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions\/2589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}