Philippe Troussier was a nobody in France until he came down to Africa as coach of ASEC Mimosas, Abidjan towards the end of 1989. The young man did not play top soccer in his country and remained unknown to Ligue A clubs as he wandered from one lesser team to another.
Troussier was quite ambitious and was able to prove himself when he led the Abidjan Butterflies to Ivorian Cup triumph in 1990. While he worked out with his ASEC players, the Frenchman had other plans. His eyes were on Nigeria.
The Super Eagles defeated hosts Benin Republic 1-0 in a Senegal ’92 qualifier decided at Stade L’Amitie, Cotonou. Ishaya Jatau got the lone goal in a match Aloy Agu did not only bench returnee Peter Rufai, but wore the captain’s band. Clemens Westerhof had not yet made up his mind on Dodo Mayana since the Murtala Mohammed Airport drama of 1989 that eventually cost Nigeria the Italia ’90 World Cup ticket in Yaoundé.
That was Westerhof’s first game in charge. David Ngodigha took Rufai’s place but almost lost his life in Cameroun following a collision. Aloy Agu earned his first Eagles cap. It was another drama as the reserve goalie was not just prepared for the match. He went borrowing. Tajudeen Oyekanmi’s T-shirt and another player’s boots made Agu look strange but he had the heart of a lion.
Back to Cotonou, the Eagles lodged at Hotel GL. Their hosts ran away from responsibility because they could not raise cash to pay hotel bills. Nigerian Ambassador to Benin Republic, Philip Koroye, came to the rescue. He offset the bill.
I watched the drama from one corner of the reception. Then this white man walked up to me. I would not know how he sensed I was a Nigerian journalist. He introduced himself as Philip Troussier, coach of ASEC. Straight to the point he went. His mission was to coach Heartland of Owerri, then known as Iwuanyanwu National.
Troussier dropped his French contact address with me and asked me not to let anyone know what we discussed. Fortunately, I worked with Champion Newspapers whose publisher was also the proprietor of Iwuanyanwu National. At that time, the Naze millionaires were doing well on the continent and had advanced to the semi-finals of the CAF Champions’League. I neither contacted the club officials nor the Frenchman.
In 1991, Troussier met Nationale face to face. It was in the quarter finals of the CAF Champion’s League. He led the Ivorians to the Owerri first leg where they lost 3-0. Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu was so happy that he hosted the visitors in his Orji country home.
With a 3-0 advantage, we all thought it was going to be smooth in Abidjan. It was not. ASEC cancelled the three goals and were fighting to do more damage when time saved National. In the resultant penalty kicks, the visitors were just lucky to win 6-5. That was enough to push them into the last four against Nakivubo Villa of Uganda.
After the ouster, Troussier went for the National duo of Ben Iroha and Ishaya Jatau. The defender was one hard nut to crack and even got a goal. The attacker was a thorn in ASEC’ flesh. That was Iroha’s first real professional deal although it is on record that he scored the first goal when Nigerian soccer went professional in 1990.
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Ivorians adored Troussier so much that they made him coach of their national team. The Elephants were in the same USA ’94 final qualifying group with Algeria and Nigeria. Super Eagles picked the ticket for the very first time and debuted under the same Westerhof who could not take them to Italia ’90.
Troussier eventually found his way to Nigeria. At that time, National were out of contention. The Frenchman was looking up after managing Kaiser Chiefs, South Africa and FUS Rabat, Morocco. He took over as Eagles manager from Shuaibu Amodu. It was a terrible experience as the job ended after a France ’98 World Cup qualification ticket had been achieved.
Troussier was sacked. His replacement,, Bora Milutinovic, got the job simply because he had taken two countries to the Mundial. Those who fired the former Ivorian manager forgot that he had qualified the Eagles even before the last game against Guinea.
Nigeria did not miss the man and he also could have laughed at the Nigerians. Troussier took Burkina Faso to the 1998 Africa Nations Cup semi-finals. Their best performance at the time. The Eagles were not there, having been sanctioned by CAF in 1996 for failing to defend the trophy which they won at Tunisia ’94.
Troussier eventually made France ’98 as coach of Bafana Bafana when Jomo Sono was pushed aside after taking the South Africans, defending Nations Cup champions, to silver in Burkina Faso.
Just before 1998 petered out, Troussier was hired by Japan to take over from Takeshi Okada. And the man found his way to Nigeria again. It was at the Nigeria ’99 FIFA Under-20 World Cup. The Flying Eagles could not go beyond the middle stage. The Japs were runners -up to champions, Spain. He must have laughed as Nigerians gnashed their teeth.
Some of the boys who won silver in Nigeria formed the bedrock of the national team. They included Shinji Ono, Junichi Inamoto, Koji Nakata, Masashi Motoyama and Naohiro Takahara.
With them, Japan won the Asian Cup in 2000, won silver at the 2001 Confederations Cup and got to the last 16 of the Korea/Japan 2002 World Cup while Nigeria failed to win a match.
Troussier was nicknamed ‘White witch doctor’ and later converted to Islam choosing the name Omar.
