Ex-international, Dr Felix Owolabi (MON), has warned that the new Super Eagles’ manager, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, could be in for trouble in his new assignment.
Owoblow, who over the weekend, bared his mind on the state of Nigerian football in an interview he granted Sportsville, said he has fears that Keshi might end up going the way of Samson Siasia.
The Ibadan-based former Green Eagles winger, noted that Keshi might not perform any magic with the Eagles given the environment he is going to operate in.
He pointed out that what Nigerian football needs at the moment was a re-building process and not tasking a coach to qualify the nation for one competition or the other as the NFF has mandated Keshi to do.
“I just hope they are not bringing Keshi to kill him. Keshi has been mandated to take us to South Africa 2013 Nations Cup and the Brazil 2014 World Cup where they want him to reach the quarterfinals. If I were Keshi, I will tell them to keep their job because it is to me, a tall order given how down our football has gone.
“What we need now is to start a re-building process, to plan for the future, to correct the mistakes that has brought our football to where it is today, and no coach can build a solid team in the midst of competitions. As we all know, the problem of our football goes beyond coaching.
“The environment is not conducive for any coach to perform. Keshi needs to be very careful, he needs all the prayers to succeed,” Owolabi said. It would be noted that Keshi was last week named the new Super Eagles’ manager after the board of the nation’s soccer governing body, the NFF sacked Coach Samson Siasia for failing to qualify Nigeria for the 2012 Nations Cup in Gabon/ Equatorial Guinea.
Keshi is expected to face his first baptism of fire as new Eagles’ manager when Nigeria will face Africa’s team of the moment and giant killer, Botswana, in an international friendly at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin, on November 11.
Botswana had during the Nations Cup qualifiers, put up a five-star performance that saw the team beat Tunisia home and away.
Showing posts with label Keshi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keshi. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
NFF may announce Keshi as Siasia's replacement on Wednesday
The choice of Keshi as successor to Samson Siasia, who was sacked on Friday after the NFF board meeting, was agreed by the majority of the board even though some of the members argued that the former Togo coach was not technically better than Siasia.
A member of the NFF board, who pleaded anonymity, told The Guardian over the weekend in Abuja that majority of the members wanted the former Super Eagles assistant coach to step into he job, having come second during the interview that produced Siasia as the coach.
The board member also revealed that the decision to give Keshi the job was informed by the insistence of the federation that it did not want a vacuum in the Super Eagles technical crew since the team was expected to reconvene soon for the 2013 African Nations Cup qualifying series.
"The Federation is going to announce Keshi as Siasia's replacement as coach of the super Eagles on Wednesday, but his full status I am not in a position to say now because some board members are against giving him a full contract. There are strong indications that it would be on acting bases, because we are still weighing the options of hiring a foreign coach for the Eagles.
"His choice was based on the simple fact that he attended the interview with Siasia. We want to avoid the situation of inviting fresh applications from other coaches. We just want somebody to start working on acting basis until we finally resolve on the possibility of hiring a foreign coach. For now, we have settled for Keshi," the source noted.
Asked why the board decided to sack Siasia despite Nigerians' call that he be given a second chance, the board member noted that Siasia's greatest undoing was his arrogance to the technical committee members, as well as the clause on his contract.
"The reports and recommendations of the technical committee were very unfavourable. They said that Siasia was very arrogant to them; that he talks down on all of them, and was not ready to listen to suggestions.
"They gave an example of an incident when the technical committee wanted him to remove injured Chibuzor Okonkwo since he had not been playing for Heartland, but he refused. During the match against Guinea, it was obvious Siasia was biased and sentimental in his selections. He fielded his boys," he noted.
On the conditions that would have saved Siasia from sack, the board member said; "I can tell you the general feeling of most members was that if Siasia had resigned immediately after the match, he would have been retained, but his overconfidence was his greatest undoing."
A member of the NFF board, who pleaded anonymity, told The Guardian over the weekend in Abuja that majority of the members wanted the former Super Eagles assistant coach to step into he job, having come second during the interview that produced Siasia as the coach.
The board member also revealed that the decision to give Keshi the job was informed by the insistence of the federation that it did not want a vacuum in the Super Eagles technical crew since the team was expected to reconvene soon for the 2013 African Nations Cup qualifying series.
"The Federation is going to announce Keshi as Siasia's replacement as coach of the super Eagles on Wednesday, but his full status I am not in a position to say now because some board members are against giving him a full contract. There are strong indications that it would be on acting bases, because we are still weighing the options of hiring a foreign coach for the Eagles.
"His choice was based on the simple fact that he attended the interview with Siasia. We want to avoid the situation of inviting fresh applications from other coaches. We just want somebody to start working on acting basis until we finally resolve on the possibility of hiring a foreign coach. For now, we have settled for Keshi," the source noted.
Asked why the board decided to sack Siasia despite Nigerians' call that he be given a second chance, the board member noted that Siasia's greatest undoing was his arrogance to the technical committee members, as well as the clause on his contract.
"The reports and recommendations of the technical committee were very unfavourable. They said that Siasia was very arrogant to them; that he talks down on all of them, and was not ready to listen to suggestions.
"They gave an example of an incident when the technical committee wanted him to remove injured Chibuzor Okonkwo since he had not been playing for Heartland, but he refused. During the match against Guinea, it was obvious Siasia was biased and sentimental in his selections. He fielded his boys," he noted.
On the conditions that would have saved Siasia from sack, the board member said; "I can tell you the general feeling of most members was that if Siasia had resigned immediately after the match, he would have been retained, but his overconfidence was his greatest undoing."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)