The Difference Between Managing A National Team And A Club Is A Switch In Mentality, Says Amuneke

Emmanuel Amuneke, who has managed both a football club and a national team says the difference between both jobs is switching mentality and he prefers both.

He began his managerial career at Saudi club Al-Hazem and also managed at Al-Khartoum in Sudan. He has managed the national teams with Nigeria at U17 level and the senior team of Tanzania.

“I prefer both, but it’s all about a change of mentality,” Amuneke said in an Instagram Live Chat with Ada Peters. “Of course, the national team, you have a very long period of time where you are not engaged in any competitive football, but you have to be planning.

“When you are not training, you have to plan. You have to evaluate the team. You have to evaluate the player. You have to look at the opponent. Each game is totally different. Each team comes with a different style.

“You have to look at players that you can bring on board that can fit into the system that you want to play in the game.”

While national team footballs are played during the FIFA official international windows and off seasons, the club football seasons mostly run for 10 months in a year with domestic and continental cup games in between.

“Club level management is a day to day activity. You know, it all depends on the period you are. If you are in the period of preparation, which enables you to prepare your team before the tournament and if you are in the period of a competition what you actually learn is to see day to day mistakes.

“After each game, analyze things from a holistic point of view, then you go back to correct what you have seen, the mistakes, that team, and then you work towards the opponent that you, people are going to meet next.”

“So it’s totally different in both ways,” he added. “It’s just the matter of, you know, changing your ideas and changing your mentality and adapting it to the one that you have at a time and accommodating your perspective.

“That is how I see it but of course like you mentioned earlier, you know, some people are good with the national team. Some people are offsite, but of course all our part of the game is not easy.”

“The demands are so high it makes you always be on your toes to know what and what to do,” he concluded.

Amuneke has achieved success at national team level but not at club management. He led Nigeria U17 to the 2015 FIFA World Cup in Chile and qualified Tanzania for the 2019 AFCON in Egypt, their first in 39 years.

Cover Image via Getty