Nzogbu Nzogbu Enyimba Enyi” – Trample all, the People’s Elephants – a famous chant belonging to one of Nigeria’s best football club which serves as a prerequisite for crushing all that lay in their paths couldn’t inspire the former CAF Champions League winners in the just concluded 2021/2022 NPFL season.

A bizarre season it was for the People’s Elephants, under the tutelage of the new manager that was appointed in September 2021 ahead of the new season.

The Aba side appointed Nigerian Legend, Finidi George as a replacement for Fatai Osho, but things didn’t go as expected result wise, in what proved to be a disappointing season for their fans.

Before picking up the Enyimba Job, His previous coaching roles was being a director of international football at former club Real Betis and also managing the youth team of his erstwhile Spanish side, Real Mallorca in 2013.

How worse could a season have been for Enyimba? Losing more games than they won defines how dreadful it was for them.

Enyimba ended the season placed seventh, with 52 points garnered from 38 games, ( 15 wins, 16 losses, 7 draws).

When predictions for the season were made, it would have been insane to find any stakeholder of the League predict such a gloomy one for them, considering how strongly they ended the season in recent years.

Many of the club’s supporters during the season called for Coach Finidi George to be sacked, being unhappy about how things were unfolding. Perhaps things could have changed if Enyimba parted ways with Coach Finidi??? No one knows, but with what the result says, those fans weren’t wrong afterall to have asked for a change, and their sadness in the end justified.

On being unhappy, the Enyimba supporters don’t seem unhappy as Coach Finidi George himself. Speaking to Elegbetetv.com, he said:

” I am even more angry than the fans, because I came with that mindset of achieving greatly, but it fell short. The aim was to secure a continental spot, but 3 games to the

season’s halt, when players saw it was not possible, it was quite difficult to convince players to go for what’s not achievable anymore. ”

Conversations like “having to rescind a little to trace wrongs & restrategise”, frequently comes up amongst people, and Finidi on the Enyimba angle felt so too, and also assured the fans the club would be having a good return.

” I can understand the fans’ anger, but atimes there comes the necessity to take a few steps backwards to see where things went wrong. Enyimba will definitely bounce back and come back stronger, that I can promise the fans.”

The tactical side of this game, football, is beautiful, but what’s tactics when there’s no good player-coach relationship? Absolutely nothing. A weak player-coach relationship obviously crumbles the team faster, and for Finidi George who was coming into the league fresh, also with a team as big as Enyimba, having a team that’s happy and a dressing room in accord was necessary.

He told us how it was for him coming into the NPFL and how he successfully managed his players.

” A very big thanks to Enyimba for the good opportunity. I must say, it was a great experience for me in the League”

” My relationship with the players was second to none. It is not easy when you have a very big group, but it was handled well during the season.”

“I had only one incident whereby a player felt he was a starter but didn’t play much in the beginning, and got angry, but that was resolved in no time. That incident didn’t affect us.” Finidi said.

Excuses wouldn’t be accepted when the next season starts and for Enyimba, they’d expect to be in a better position when the next season ends. For Coach Finidi, his aim is to have the team

get a top 3 finish, and he hopes to achieve this with additions to the team and also ensure his team play a style that would bring that.

” The aim for every season doesn’t change. It’s either a continental chase, or it’s failure. Player addition is key too, and I trust the club is working effortlessly to fortify the team in areas we think should be fortified.”

” Football is only not about patterns, but the willingness and readiness of players to get the job done. My philosophy is simple, you attack when you have the ball and try to win back the ball when you lose it.”

” Of Course, I have to guide the players on how to go about it. ”

Finidi is one who had always wanted to be in the mix of national team coaches, and having been appointed as Jose Peseiro’s assistant in May, he expressed what it means to him and how working with the Coach has been.

” Being a part of the Super Eagles team is a great one for me. I appreciate this opportunity and will work to see Nigeria back in the world scene again. I will do my part to help José Peseiro to succeed.

” I think Peseiro is working really hard to see how the team can blend really well, play good football and qualify for the next AFCON at the same time”

“As much as we want to qualify, we think about team building which is key for every major tournament like the AFCON.

“We are working to build a formidable team.”

Focus is on the new season for the People’s Elephants, can Finidi Turn things around?