SACK KESHI NOW!

       There is an Ibo adage that translated into English says something like this, “when a man runs to the point where he no longer knows where, he ends up being caught”. For some time now, I have been calling for the revocation of Keshi’s contract as Super Eagles coach, I think that after the match against Sudan in Khartoum this evening which Nigeria lost by a lone goal, there will be no excuse toying around with mediocrity. It is true that Keshi won the coveted nations cup as a coach barely a year and some months ago for us, but even at that, we were lucky to have a pack of footballers who were in their best form at the time, Victor Moses, Brown Ideye et al, coinciding with a bunch of hungry home based footballers led by one Sunday Mba…. But in football as in other sports, luck may help you sometimes, but not all the time.

  I don´t want anybody to say that I am feasting on the lack luster performance of this evening to pick on Stephen Keshi and our coaching crew, if you have read my other reports before now you would have known my position on Keshi and his team. It is out rightly unacceptable that after two years in front of the super Eagles as coach, Stephen Keshi does not still have a regular team nor a pattern of play, even though God gave him a team during the last nations cup. Brown Ideye and Emenike in our attack line at the last nations cup reminded one of those good days of yore with Rashidi Yekini and Samson Siasia upfront, one doing the playing and the other doing the scoring, Ideye and Emenike during the last nations cup appeared to understand each other to perfection, but Keshi killed that relationship during the world cup, Sunday Mba who was also instrumental to our success at the nations cup was also wiped out of the team.

  I do not want to talk about Ikechukwu Uche because his case was alleged by Keshi to be that of indiscipline and arrogance, for which his exclusion may be justified, but the insistence of Keshi in using Mikel Obi an off-form player as a regular in a nation that has at least over 20 million Nigerian youths playing football is intolerable to say the least, Keshi is not coaching Nigeria free of charge, he is paid to do the work and should not feel that because he has won the African cup of nations, that is the best Nigerians desire and deserve in football as a nation, our nation has more than enough potentials to win the world cup if well harnessed and if we have a coaching crew that lives and breathes football, that take their assignments home and not only remember that they are coaches two days before every match.

  Nigeria can no longer accommodate mediocrity, Keshi and his crew should be sacked with immediate effect, and any coach that should be signed on should first sign an undertaking before Nigerians that there will never be a national call up for Mikel Obi, and that other mediocre players like Ambrose Efe, Echiejile and the rest, with exception of Vincent Enyeama, Ogenyi Onazi, Oboabona, Omeruo and Emenike should do much more than what they are doing before they can deserve a call up. All this nonsense should stop; people should begin to learn to deserve to wear the green white green before they are allowed to, A national team that could not make three quick and continuous passes on the pitch cannot claim to have a coach who is paid millions of naira, if that is the best that coach Stephen Keshi can offer, we can as well pick on just anybody on the streets of Nigeria to be our coach.

  Nigeria deserve a coaching crew that can read the game before and during a match, who understands the technicality and the tactical aspect of the game, the fact that Keshi has played football and has successfully coached less known African footballing nations like Togo and Mali, does not mean he has what it takes to coach Nigeria. Football is a game of positive results and any coach who cannot guarantee that should be sent packing. I really think that the time to sack Keshi is now!