Coach Samson Siasia: a short biography

Soccer is one of the most popular sports in Nigeria, with an estimated following of more than 50 million fans spread across the country’s 36 states. The game has gained such prominence with the subsequent emergence of the Super Eagles as one of the most important brands in Africa.

The game has always been sponsored by certain technocrats commonly referred to as soccer coaches. These are the arrowhead of any successful team, as they ensure that the players are well groomed and conditioned. In Nigeria, soccer coaches have been given a fair share of prominence with the Nigerian Soccer Federation’s insistence on hiring local coaches to lead the national teams. One of the most popular tacticians in the country is none other than Samson Siasia.

Short biography

Coach Samson Siasia remains the most popular soccer technocrat in Nigeria to date, with his background in age-group teams. He is currently the head coach of the senior national team, the Nigerian Super Eagles, which is ranked fourth in Africa. Coach Samson Siasia rose to prominence in 2005 when he led the U-20 National Team to second place at the FIFA U-20 tournament in the Netherlands.

The desire to succeed led him to recruit a new generation of soccer stars at the 2008 Olympic Games soccer event in Beijing, China. He made headlines in Nigeria with the brilliant performance of Dream Team 4 who reached the final only to lose to eventual winners Argentina by a single goal.

In December 2010, he was formally named the head coach of the Super Eagles after months of speculation in the media. He remains a firm believer in grassroots football with a strong emphasis on local players who have been deployed into the mainstream Super Eagles.

He is also the founder of the Siaone Soccer Academy, which is currently based in Yenegoa Bayelsa state. The academy was born out of a passion to train future talents and potential players for the national U-17 soccer team.

A native of Bayelsa state, she was part of the Super Eagles team that won the 2004 African Cup of Nations in Tunisia. He was also an integral member of the Nigerian national team that wowed the world at the FIFA World Cup in the United States of America, where he scored the fantastic goal against Argentina.

A product of the Nigeria Under-20 team that participated in the 1985 World Youth Championship, he was a prolific poacher who played for the best soccer clubs in France, Belgium and Saudi Arabia.