BY SAB OSUJI

Coaches in the second tier domestic league who participated in the just concluded Nigeria National League, NNL, preseason refresher course have heaped plaudits on the George Aluo led NNL for providing the platform to tap from the huge coaching credentials of two of Nigeria's greatest players and now coaches, Augustine 'Cerezo' Eguavoen and Peter 'Dodo Mayana' Rufai, Exclusivenews.com.ng reports.

The coaches have commended the board of the second tier league led by George Aluo for their foresight in repositioning the league through training and retraining of coaches.

The programme was put in place as part of Preseason formalities to shore up the coaching knowledge of the tactician, moreso benefitting from the experiences of the foremost Nigerian coaches, Eguavoen and Rufai who at different times captained the Super Eagles having both made the Super Eagles squad during Nigeria's FIFA World Cup finals debute in USA 1994.

Eguavoen is currently Technical Director of the NFF. Together with Rufai, both served as Resource Persons during the NNL Teftesher Course.

The refresher course was held by NNL in conjunction with the National Institute For Sports, NIS, for all the 40 club coaches in the league and was aimed at upgrading them in modern football coaching techniques.

In separate interviews during the seminar coaches of El Kanemi Warriors of Maiduguri, Aliu Zubair, Adamawa United, Usman Adams and that of Stationery Stores of Lagos, Bob Osim all agreed that they learnt a lot from the course anchored by eminent resource persons.

The resource persons included Technical Director of NFF, Austin Eguavoen, former Super Eagles players; Peter Rufai and Clement Temile, NIS lecturer, Kuhwa Iorsue Jeremiah and UEFA licensed coach, Portuguese Thiago Conde.

The happy coaches noted that the impact of what they were taught will be seen when the 2023/2024 league season kicks off on October, 28.

According to them, the George Aluo led board of NNL deserves commendation for the initiative which is the first in the history of the second tier league just as they expressed hope that it will be sustained.

”We must commend the NNL board led by George Aluo for coming up with this wonderful idea of preparing coaches adequately before the commencement of the league which is the first of it’s kind in the history of the NNL.

“For us, this is a new dawn and it has not happened before in the history of the NNL. It takes the courage of a visionary leader to organise this type of seminar which has enriched the coaches’ knowledge as they prepare for the new season.

” It’s also important to state that we learnt a lot from the resource persons and hopefully we’re going to impact the knowledge to our players which will lead to a better league”, they chorused.

The coaches were of the opinion that with regular seminars, the country’s football will improve greatly even as they charged the other leagues to emulate the NNL and organise refresher courses for their coaches.