If you were an ardent Nigerian football fan in the early 2000’s, you will definitely remember a 6 feet 4 inches (1.93m) lanky defender of the Super Eagles of Nigeria who is known for his trademark green and white bandana tied to his head.
The player’s name is Efetobore Peter Sodje. He spent most of his illustrious footballing career in England with Championship Clubs like Stevenage Borough, Macclesfield Town and the likes before he retired from club football. Now, Sodje is a top scout for top English Premier League club side, Sheffield United.
The Green-White-Green bandana defender gives an insight on the right pre requisite for scouting young, upcoming and talented Nigerian footballers.
He stated that the scouting of players on video is not a good practice, emphasizing that only the good part of the player is displayed and the bad part is deleted.
With this, a scout for a club can never score how talented the player is in terms of individual attributes.
He advised, “For me, the best way for scouting a player nowadays is literally for the scout to come to Warri or Lagos or anywhere in Nigeria to watch the player play for at least10 days of scouting then you can see the talents of this player.”
Sodje explained further that,”When you go on videos, Videos are short clips showing only the good stuff, for me as a good scout I rather say the best thing is to see the players by going LIVE to see them play.”
Sodje strongly advised players of Nigerian league to change their mentality on a white man coming to scout them. It is negatively assumed by the Nigerian League players that a black man scout does not know what he is doing as compared to the white man scout.
