A new favourite has emerged in the race for the next foreign technical adviser of the Super Eagles, with Serbian veteran tactician, Alexsandar Rogic now tipped to edge the job ahead of two of his compatriots.
This is in spite of recent rebuttals by top shots of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), who stated again earlier this week that they are not considering any expatriate coach for now due to cost implications and logistics.
There has also been a report about differences between the NFF’s technical committee and the soccer governing body’s president, Melvin Amaju Pinnick over any reasonable need for hiring a foreigner to tinker the Eagles, considering the lofty job current interim handler, Salisu Yusuf appears to be doing.
Despite differences and hesitations on the matter, though, owngoalnigeria.com has revealed that NFF technical committee chairman, Barrister Chris Green will travel to Europe next week to hold talks with the three Serbian coaches pencilled for the job.
Those in contention alongside 34-year-old Rogic are former Black Stars of Ghana coach Goran Stefanovic and current coach of Uganda, Milutin Sredojevic (Micho).
The initial thought had been that the NFF would favour Micho as favourite, based on his wealth of experience and high level knowledge of African football, having spent twelve years on the continent and turned Uganda into a major threat during the Gabon 2017 AFCON qualifiers.
Micho, obviously, has an edge on Stefanovic, who handles Greek second division side, Agrotikos Asteras and was assistant manager of Serbia from 2003 to 2006, after which he worked in Ghana as head coach of The Black Stars.
Both Serbians, though, have reportedly surprisingly been edged aside by Rogic, who also has experience of working in Ghana for a year as an assistant to Stefanovic from 2011 to 2012.
However, the choice of Rogic is sure to raise more questions and stir further controversy, should he eventually get the Eagles’ job, as he is currently still an assistant coach with mid-class Hebei Zhongji of China.
The argument being forwarded by egg heads in the NFF is that Rogic would be the cheapest of all three Serbians and, with a look at the much-talked about lean finances at The Glasshouse, the Nigerian soccer lords appear constrained to go for cheap quantity rather than qualitative value.