Vincent Enyeama did not die for this...

Football is a team sport. That is hardly the most profound observation; if all that is all I came out of a five-month hiatus to say, this would be a most underwhelming missive indeed. So, stay with me here. I will get to the point soon enough.

Everyone knows what football is. But, like with all things we know, there is a tendency toward forgetting. The same applies to the beautiful game: we are apt to forget its nature and think of it as an individual undertaking, especially where it concerns certain positions. 

Now, it is impossible to reckon without the individual, for what is the whole if not a sum of its constituent parts? To a proponent of, say, man-marking, football consists of individuals winning their respective duels all over the pitch, thereby achieving a multiplier effect that begets dominance. So yes, the individual matters. That said, even in the scenario just described, he only matters within a certain context. It is that context that is supreme above all, and it is within that context that the individual’s actions are not only given meaning, but can amount to coherence.

So when, in the aftermath of Nigeria’s 3-2 win over Sierra Leone on Sunday, there were misgivings about Adebayo Adeleye, the Super Eagles’ goalkeeper on the day, it was clear that, in more ways than one, a wave of amnesia was once more washing through.

Now, it is important to state, for the record, that this is not a definitive vote for Adeleye to assume the mantle of starting goalkeeper. The game in Monrovia was his first competitive start for Nigeria, and while he conceded two goals, there was little to fault. Overall he put his best foot forward and did not look indecisive, which is a danger when goalkeepers are thrown straight into the fray in hostile territory. Be that as it may, the sample size is a small one, and only upon further evaluation will his aptitude for the position long term become clear.

What was difficult to stomach, however, was the fact that Adeleye, in many quarters, was dismissed out of hand on account of his modest height. In the absence of actual errors to critique, this bad-faith verdict manifested in vague statements about his lack of ‘commanding presence’ because, as you can imagine, it would sound altogether too mundane to simply say ‘he’s too short for my money’ and leave it at that. A semblance of depth must be hinted at, even if by means of obfuscation.

Even if it means ignoring perhaps the biggest case study in Nigerian football history of not judging a book by its cover: Vincent Enyeama, the country’s greatest ever goalkeeper who, for 12 years, was in the post – literally and figuratively. Standing under six feet in height, Enyeama was forced to weather the same doubts, both from the public and from different Super Eagles coaching crews, beating them away one swipe at a time, a year for a labour, to finally enter the pantheon.

Having previously been enlightened, tasting in the process two CAF Champions League titles and the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, it was no small disappointment to see Nigerian football fans fall away again. It is tantamount to crucifying Enyeama all over again to our loss, especially at a time when there is a real dearth of winsome alternatives.

Do physical dimensions not matter then? Of course they do. For different positions/roles in football, there exist physical and athletic stereotypes that are useful in the broader sense. However, in the margin excellence can sometimes be found, and the margin is populated by footballers who defy the established wisdom in many ways. 

As an instance, when Manchester United signed Lisandro Martinez, the media was awash with analysis that focused almost exclusively on his (lack of) height; it was not so much that he was small, but that he was small by centre-back standards. Off the back of a largely impressive first season at Old Trafford, some of that initial scepticism has been oh-so-quietly walked back. 

Interestingly, though, much of the credit has gone to the player himself, with many extolling the other facets of his game with which he has compensated for his physical limitation. Comparatively, not a lot of credit has gone to the system into which he has been placed, which is ironic because, in a different system, things could have gone very differently.

It comes back to the observation from earlier, and the cognitive corollary of it. When you understand football as a team sport in its truest sense, you fixate on what is; when your gaze is directed toward the individual, you are drawn to what is absent. That, more than anything else, is the mistake many are making when it comes to goalkeepers in general, and Adeleye in particular.

When you have a striker who is, say, 6ft 7in tall and slow, everyone instinctively understands that the rest of the team needs to alter its approach in order to make that striker effective. That conditions every aspect of the team’s attacking play: the speed of the build-up, the avenues of attack, the height and depth of balls played forward, preferred attack zones, modes of entry into the opposing penalty area, etc. 

The same should be true for a goalkeeper like Adeleye who, as alluded to previously, is relatively small for the position. (Not so small as to be unprecedented, of course: the great Iker Casillas, for instance, was only an inch taller, the same height as contemporary and multiple UEFA Champions League winner Victor Valdes, and Fabien Barthez was in net during France’s era of global dominance at the turn of the century despite being the same height as Adeleye.)

Nigeria is hardly swimming in abundance when it comes to its choices between the sticks anyway, and even within its sparse pickings there are no slam dunks. Maduka Okoye, perhaps the most rounded option, is introverted and of the wrong complexion, while Francis Uzoho looks the part and has the popular vote but is eccentric and has a weakness for shots played around his feet. Neither’s club situation is particularly clear at the moment either, and so there is scope for disruption.

Here is a novel idea then: instead of judging and damning Adeleye for the mortal sin of not being five inches taller, how about we treat football like the team sport it is and format the rest of the team to get the best out of him? If you have a goalkeeper who, due to a lack of height, prefers to stay on his line to maximise his speed and reaction time, the obvious accommodation is to work toward a system that (a) does not defend deep, and (b) aggressively cuts out crosses.

Now, this is no small imposition, to be clear. The height and width of the defensive line are key tenets of a team’s out-of-possession structure, and condition some of the in-possession elements as well. If you defend higher, for instance, you need to press, and if you press you need quicker centre-backs (more on this in a subsequent newsletter), as well as a spatial distribution in possession that enables pressing—it’s a domino effect, really. So, while those solutions are simple to arrive at, they are not easy to implement.

That said, it is a decision you make cognizant of the upside, both for the team and for the system. To exemplify the latter, under Jose Peseiro, the Super Eagles have been porous at the back, managing only two clean sheets in nine matches. More worrying, however, is the fact that they seem incapable of withstanding pressure to any significant degree, and often crumble when forced back. In light of this, not playing quite so deep already has significant upside to it, and would go some way toward addressing the lack of clarity and composure Nigeria at the back in defensive moments. 

There is clearly some worth to it, but it is impossible to second-guess Peseiro (if he remains in situ, of course). For some, Adebayo was simply a placeholder to tide the team over, and that may well be the case. However, when it comes to evaluating footballers, unless one has a lineup of paragons to choose from, it is important to think of them in terms of what gifts they do possess, rather than those they do not.