An Interlocution with a Nigerian Luminary

If we could physically share a room. I imagine sitting across an intelligent and perceptive manager. One with a great sense of humor. We may probably be sharing a cup of N*scafé. While we wait for the camera man to set up the lighting. In case you don't know who i refer to. I will let the interview do the introduction. This is a manager who has chiseled his name in the history of the Nigerian series system.

Interviewer: Hello, first of all many, many congratulations on winning the Nigerian League Cup. An incredible feat that has etched your name in history. Among the greats. Please can you introduce yourself to the Hattrick community?


LA-henced (10797792): Hello, and thank you. Who I am? I am a Swede in my fifties, who started playing Hattrick nine years ago. I quickly became active in our community, and started a very successful federation in early 2011 that has been active ever since. I have also been in charge of the Swedish mentor-ship program, and now I help out with translations as an LA.






Interviewer: How long have you been in the Nigerian Series system. And what attracted you?


LA-henced: When secondary teams were introduced the gang in my federation decided that we wanted to make a joint effort somewhere. At that time we were quite influential in the Swedish communities for the NT and the U20, but we thought it would be fun to just go somewhere else and support what was already happening there, mostly to make friends from more places. So we wrote a public letter to a bunch of communities and posted in their forums and checked the reaction. Based on the reactions from different places we took a vote on where to go - and in the end a dozen or so Nigerian teams were started by managers that were all reasonably big names in Sweden at the time. This happened on the very day the secondary teams were released, and we all put our different plans into place, planning to be super-farmers for the Nigerians national teams.

Like it often happens, it didn't work out the way we wanted. Many of our group reacted against price changes on Supporter, others just didn't have the time. A few stayed, like I and Manofpeace, the manager of Cross the Green Mountain (twice cup winners some seasons back!). Also we found that the talents we created weren't really enough to create success for the Nigerian U20, for different reasons. (Although one of my star talents was part of the Nigerian U20 squad that reached the last 8 some seasons back.) My own plan changed into trying to make my homegrown stars into National team players, and while that happened I built a decent team around them.






Interviewer: In your opinion, where can Katsina Felines (282548) go from here? Do you see the League Cup as a stomping ground for your team or do you plan to do a double? In other words can Katsina Felines exert the same amount of dominance not witnessed in the Premiership since Ago Iwoye?



LA-henced: We now play our tenth season in the premiership in a row. My four core homegrown stars have played in the starting team for all that time, and played over 180 caps altogether for the Nigerian national team. We have had one league title, and been quite close a number times besides that. But as it is my core is getting old. There will be no more titles for them, and I am not interested in competing with a team made up of mercenaries. So rebuilding will start real soon now, and luckily we have some really promising new youngsters on the way that can become the new Idah, Ayoola, Egobia and Creek. This season we only focus on Hattrick Masters, really.


Interviewer: How did you manage to build a very competitive team? Katsina Felines, under the leadership of LA-henced, became league champions season 47. And since then has not tasted League glory. Is the Nigerian Premiership now very competitive?


LA-henced: The key to our strength has been the four superstars, who are very versatile. This has helped us be able to play in many different ways, and also have remarkable strength in whichever strategy we focus on for an individual game. Nigeria has been quite competitive for a number of seasons now. As I have had close friends in the Swedish premiership every season for the last 20 or so, I am able to compare the two. Sweden has a lot more strong teams of course, but quite often the top three or four are about as strong in both leagues.



Interviewer: What are your plans for your career? Do you see an U20 coaching or NT career in the horizon?



LA-henced: Some years back I was a training strategist for the Swedish U20, and set up training schemes that you can still see the traces of. I gave up on that though, as I felt that too few people who worked with the National teams did it for the long term good of the team and community, and too many did it for personal glory - and the latter were never really interested in learning much about the reasons why certain strategies are set in place.
For me it is enough to try and grow stars in my teams, I will not try to be elected anywhere. (I have been asked to run several times in Sweden, and always said no.)




Interviewer: Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night realizing that you need to change/set some order for a match in your team, or things like that?



LA-henced: Doesn't everybody have a laptop next to the bed just in case?

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