Tag: keshi

Soccer buffs have  continued to react to the  provisional list of Super Eagles for the 2014 Brazil World Cup released on Tuesday by Coach Stephen Keshi, saying it’s his choice.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Keshi had announced a provisional list of 30 players, recalled team captain Joseph Yobo and Osaze Odemwingie but dropped Villareal’s Ikechukwu Uche.

NAN reports that Nigeria will be playing in Group F alongside Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovinia and Iran at the Mundial.

Former Super Eagles Technical Adviser, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, told NAN on Wednesday on telephone that the team list was Keshi’s choice.

“The team list is the choice of Keshi as the man in charge who knows what pattern he wants to use for the matches at the World Cup in Brazil,” he said.

Onigbinde, who said it was a long time he saw the players last in action, wondered if he had the temerity to question his action in leaving out or including a particular person in the team.

“All we can do is to wish the players and their handlers well at the World Cup,” he said.

He called on Nigerians to pray and support the team to do well.

Felix Owolabi, a.k.a, “Owo-Blow”,  a former Green Eagles left winger, said he welcomed the recall of Osaze Odewingwe of Stoke City FC of England back into the squad. He added that it was not too late for Keshi to also bring in Ike Uche.

“I don’t know the para-metres used by Keshi in selecting his team, but I feel strongly about the exclusion of Uche in the team. Uche is a good joker for Nigeria, therefore, it is not too late to recall him into the team because he is a good substitute for any coach,” Owolabi said.

He said that countries like Italy, Agentina, France, Netherlands and Spain would never leave behind their best players while going for World Cup and urged Keshi to have a rethink. He added that the World Cup outing in Brazil was different from the Nations Cup in South Africa.

Owolabi wondered if Nigeria could afford to miss the services of a potent player like Uche.

Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi, an ex-international, told NAN that all Nigerians needed to do was to support the team by Keshi, saying that “he has the right to select players.

“There is no point raising issues on the exclusion of Uche in the team because Keshi knows the players for the event,” he said.

Former Super Eagles defender, Ajibade Babalade, told NAN that Keshi had the ace when it comes to which player should be invited for the assignment, arguing that “there is not point crucifying him over Uche.

“I think the player had an axe to grind with Keshi and the Super Eagles technical crew asked him to apologise, but he refused. So, for me it is an act of indiscipline,” Babalade said.

NAN reports that among Keshi’s 30-man team list released on Tuesday are Goalkeepers Vincent Enyeama, Austin Ejide, Chigozie Agbim and Daniel Akpeyi.

The defenders are Elderson Echiejile, Juwon Oshaniwa, Godfrey Oboabona, Azubuike Egwuekwe, Kenneth Omeruo, Joseph Yobo, Kunle Odunlami and Efe Ambrose.

Also, the midfielders are John Mikel Obi, Ogenyi Onazi, Ramon Azeez, Joel Obi, Nosa Igiebor, Michael Uchebo, Ejike Uzoenyi, Sunday Mba, and Reuben Gabriel.

Ahmed Musa, Shola Ameobi, Emmanuel Emenike, Obinna Nsofor, Osaze Odemwingie, Babatunde Michael, Victor Moses, Uche Nwofor and Nnamdi Oduamadi are strikers.

Former Super Eagles coach, Clemence Westerhof is optimistic that coach Stephen Keshi can surpass his national team achievements.

The Dutch tactician won the Nations Cup trophy with the national team in Tunisia 94 and qualified Nigeria for the first World Cup in U.S.A ’94 as well as leading Eagles to the first round of the tournament before painfully crashing out to Italy.

Keshi is on the verge of breaking the record having won the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in South Africa in 2013 and qualified Nigeria for the forthcoming FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

“I am not worried about Keshi breaking my national team record. I think he can do that by taking the Eagles beyond the first round in Brazil. Keshi has done well for the national team since he took over the job. He has brought attractive football to the team after a long time that I left the team. I called him when he was in South Africa to congratulate him and when he qualified the team for the world Cup,” Westerhof told SportingLife.

The former Zimbabwe manager, therefore, advised Keshi to be wary of the players that are going to the World Cup to achieve individual success.

He also added that keshi should guide against interference in his team selection.

“Keshi must show anybody that he is in charge of the team. If he wants to achieve success in Brazil he must bring players that can fight together as a team and not players that will go there to entertain  and achieve individual success. He must get the right players for the right position. Again, he should guide against interference in his selection of players for the World Cup. I don’t doubt that keshi will do well in Brazil,” Westerhof said.

Westerhof also disclosed that he was denied access to enter the main bowl of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos on Friday.

Westerhof in conjunction with VPRO TV crew from Holland was at the National stadium to do a recording of his documentary about his achievement with Nigeria football.

“I was surprised when I was told by the stadium manager that I have to go and get permission before I can be allowed to make use of the stadium. He said I can do the recording outside the stadium but not at the main bowl. I want to show the whole world the stadium I used to achieve my success with the Super Eagles. I am still waiting patiently for the directive because I came back to Nigeria because of this project,” Westerhof said.

Information available to SportingLife revealed that Westerhof was denied access to the main bowl because of the bad situation of the stadium.

“They don’t have anything against Westerhof but they are ashamed to allow him and his crew in because of the state of things at the stadium. The condition of the stadium is very bad and they don’t want them to make any recording that will be shown to the world that the stadium had gone that bad,” a source told SportingLife.

Keshi is expected back in the country from his trip to London today to attend Westerhof’s 74th birthday together with some members of the 1994 squad like Alloy Agu, Peter Rufai, Daniel Amokachi and a host of others.

Nigerians eager to know the country’s representatives for the Brazil 2014 World Cup campaign can heaved a sigh of relief as the Super Eagles chief coach, Stephen Keshi is slated to defend his choice of players in Abuja on May 6.

SportingLife gathered exclusively from those that should know at the Glasshouse in Abuja yesterday that Keshi will present his 35-man list, explain his plans for the 2014 World Cup competition, beginning with the international friendly match against Scotland on May 28 at Craven Cottage in England. Text messages were discreetly sent to the telephone lines of members of the NFF technical committee without stating the agenda for the May 6 parley session with the Big Boss.

The technical committee meeting with Keshi has been troublesome since the day it was mooted to be held on March 25. Rather than Keshi keeping to the date in Abuja, he chose to attend the meet-the-editors session organized by Tom Tom.

The members got angry and vowed not to attend another meeting fixed for April 6 following the intervention of the body’s president, Aminu Maigari.

But at another meeting held two weeks ago, members directed Keshi to get sufficient information to justify why he picked some players whose injury stories made headline news in the media.

Sportinglife can reveal today that Stephen Keshi will remain as the Super Eagles Chief Coach till November 2015, irrespective of the outcome of Nigeria’s 2014 World Cup matches beginning with the June 13 opener against Iran in Brazil.

Indeed, Keshi struck a four-year deal with eggheads of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in 2011 making it imperative on him to see out his contract except either of parties decides to terminate it, but NFF president Aminu Maigari does not want to stop keshi deal no matter what happens in brazil during the 2014 World Cup.

Disclosing this exclusively to SportingLife but published in his weekly column with Nigeria’s fastest growing newspaper The Nation, NFF President Aminu Maigari wrote: “Most amusing was the contention that the NFF was deliberately planning for Keshi to fail in order that the Federation would have no reason to renew his contract! How ridiculous! I recall that the Nigeria Football Federation signed a four-year contract with Coach Keshi way back in November 2011, which means he would be in the job until November 2015, unless otherwise mutually agreed for parting of ways.

“Even as the Coach is working assiduously to ensure a good outing for our African champions in Brazil, self-styled ‘brothers’ and ‘friends’ are already talking up a new contract, more than one-and-half years to the expiration of the current agreement.

” It is amazing to see this kind of chicanery playing out in a section of the media. Long before any of those persons now struggling for the front pages, the Nigeria Football Federation believed in Stephen Keshi and appointed him Head Coach of the Senior National Team in November 2011, following the exit of Samson Siasia.

“As a person, I always gave support to Stephen Keshi, even before he got the job. I respected his contributions as a player and captain of the National Team for more than a decade and believed firmly that he deserved an opportunity to show what he could do with our Senior Team, given that he knew so much about the set-up. He had also worked as Assistant Coach of the team and as Head Coach of the U-20 team,” Maigari wrote in his column in today’s edition of The Nation newspaper.