An evening with Eric Chelle

When his name was first announced as that of the new manager of the Super Eagles, the national football team of Nigeria, I was one of the first persons to ask the question: Eric who? I wondered if ‘Eric Sekou Chelle’ was the name of a person, a place or a thing.

As extensive as the radar of my football experiences could scan, the only Eric that came to mind was Eric Cantona, the maverick football ‘general’ that once made Old Trafford his playground but whose legend as a player was, unfortunately, not extended to his managerial accomplishments.

So, like me, for most Nigerians Eric Chelle did not exist in the football planet. He came from the blue, an African born in Ivory Coast by a White French father and a Black Malian mother. He played limited domestic football in France and a handful of matches for the Malian national team. Thereafter, he turned to coaching and his greatest ‘achievement’ was managing the Malian national team to the semi-finals of the last African Cup of Nations slightly over a year ago in Ivory Coast! Those credentials did not match the expectations of Nigerians. So, there was shock and apprehension with his appointment.

But then, no one can discountenance the total unpredictability in the greatest and most beautiful game in the world, the place of uncommon and unscripted plots, and condemn Eric Chelle without examining the motivation of those that engaged him to start with. The Technical Committee as well as the Executive Committee of Nigerian football must have seen and must know what the rest of us did not see or know. Otherwise they would not have had the courage or audacity to appoint an unknown coach following the generally poor results and performances of the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the past 10