Coach
Stephen Keshi is now history in Nigerian football, although that is not to say
that the door of coaching the Super Eagles is closed to him forever, as it is
custom in Nigeria, it is possibly not a good bye but a see you later thing,
because the day his Godfathers or avid fans return to commandeer the NFF, the
football governing body of our nation, Keshi will also return with them.
I
cannot now hide my head; I am one of those who supported Coach Stephen Keshi, “The
Big Boss” as some of us who know him from his football playing days fondly call
him. At the time he was signed on to head the super Eagles, Nigeria needed a
coach with a vast understanding of the game and possibly one who can instill discipline
into a crop of over-blown mediocre players who had become headstrong and very
pompous especially after the retirement of two of Nigeria´s most creative and
skillful players in decades, Jay-jay Okocha and Kanu Nwankwo.
After
seeing the way these set of arrogant players rubbished Coach Samson Siasia and
the shameful participation of our team at the first ever world cup to be staged
in Africa, (South Africa 2010) it became imperative to overhaul a sport that
had for many decades in the past won our nation international recognition and
glory, so the choice of the big Boss was a very accurate one at the time.
Coach
Stephen Keshi came into the team and soon Nigerians began to feel his good
presence in the team, some of us who had lost hope in our football and had
resigned to fate that we will never win anything big at the senior level in
football again began to see our hopes rekindled. Keshi did what a lot of us had
been clamoring for a pretty long time; he encouraged hungry and often neglected
home based Nigerian footballers and began to instill the needed discipline in
the team, especially as regards our foreign based players who no sooner than
sign for clubs abroad begin to think that they are better and more special than even our nation.
For
the first time since the exit of coach Clemence westerhoff, we saw a Nigerian
team where everybody appeared equal and where everybody was running for the
ball and not a team where the big boys only pointed out fingers on the field of
play while others do the running. With this cogent philosophy of managing
perfectly well some talented home based players and helping to reduce the ego
of the foreign based players, coach Stephen Keshi led our team to win the much
coveted African nations cup in 2013 against all odds. But like a typical
Nigerian, somehow, coach Stephen Keshi allowed that victory to go into his head
and disorganize his ideals.
He
eventually dropped some key home based players and some notable foreign based
players who were instrumental in the nations cup victory and took some dead
horses to the world cup in Brazil where Nigeria did not actually perform up to
expectations. Power began to be visibly corrupt in Coach Stephen Keshi, he made
himself an untouchable and like what he tried to wipe out of the team at his
inception, he too became indiscipline before Nigerians, insisting on some off
form players, notable among them, Mikel Obi against popular clamor to leave him
out of the team so that a Nigerian team that was thought to be probably going
to get an easy walkover in their qualifying group for the next edition of the
nations cup billed to take place in Morocco, bowed in their first match to
Congo in Calabar, drew with South Africa in Johannesburg, lost to Sudan in
Khartoum for the first time since 1967 and recently managed to beat Sudan in the
second leg tie in Nigeria. Jeopardizing as it were the chances of Nigeria
defending the title it won in 2013.
Today,
the NFF has finally yielded to popular demand and has sacked Coach Stephen
Keshi from his duty as Super Eagles coach. Personally I think it is good news,
in football, the state of mind of a coach determines the spirit of his team,
for some time now, Keshi appeared to have lost the hunger and passion
characteristic of him in his first year and that too has become notable in his
team.
But
I do not think that Coach Amodu Shuaibu is the best replacement for Keshi even
if we are being told that it is going to be on an interim condition, I am not
faulting his managerial experience, but I just hate the tradition of recycling,
I think we have seen everything that Shuaibu can do and would have really loved
to see a new coach capable of bringing a new thing to the table, one that would
revolutionize the team. I would have loved to see what someone like Sunday
Oliseh can offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment