Super Eagles caretaker coach, Stephen Keshi is confident that his team will still qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, but insists that the current problems with the team has nothing to do with his tactical prowess. Keshi claims some individuals are sabotaging his efforts and the team.
Keshi, whose team lie bottom of Group A in the 2015 AFCON qualifiers with just one point after three matches stated this yesterday after receiving the prestigious LEADERSHIP Sports Person of the year award for 2013.
Represented by his brother and manager, Emmanuel Ado, Keshi commended LEADERSHIP Newspaper for the honour, saying the award will spark the team up for the task ahead. “Recognition is always a welcome development and we thank LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group Limited for recognizing him as sports person of the year 2013.”Coming at a time the team is not doing well is an indication that the team will rise again. We all know the factors responsible for the team not doing well,” he said.
According to him, the recent crisis concerning elections into the executive committee of the NFF are part of the factors affecting the performance of the team. “It is unfortunate that each time we have elections, it never worked out well and robs off negatively on the team.”What is affecting the team now are man-made factors. We don’t want to talk too much as if we are giving excuses, but I will give an instance. When he came in he did three Christmases and new years in camp; and in every match two or three weeks to the game the home based players come to camp and work very hard with the coach assessing their level of fitness and work on them before the match, but now the story is different. All we want to say for now is that Nigeria will qualify for the AFCON 2015 in Morocco,” he said.
He said instead of blaming Keshi for the Super Eagles woeful performances, Nigerians should first look at the crisis in Nigeria’s football, attitude of administrators and other factors. “Keshi is not the problem of Nigeria football but the job of a coach is to be hired and fired. Everybody knows that Keshi doesn’t have a contract and what he is doing was to answer a patriotic call to come and take charge. There have been confusion and people have to look at what had happened. Nigerians going to the World Cup knew that Coach Keshi contract will expire at the end of the World Cup. Whether they were going to retain or sack him, they ought to have taken a decision. That was not done. So, people should trace the root of this crisis because we are in a crisis and we can’t deny that. As I speak, people are in court and nobody can say he does not know anything about that. Like I said earlier, Keshi will leave Super Eagles with his head high
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