Super Eagles chief coach, Stephen Keshi, has declared that what is upper most in his mind at the moment is to first qualify Nigeria for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and afterwards gun to win the competition.
Keshi told our reporter in an interview that, his immediate mission is to beat the Flames of Malawi in Calabar in September before going to the World Cup qualifiers play-offs to win the two matches that would give Nigeria the ticket to play in the 2014 World Cup finals.
“My concentration now is to win those three games, as we must qualify first for the World Cup before aspiring to win the cup itself.
“I believe strongly that we have the squad to pick the ticket. I got this assurance after watching my players played the kind of football I wanted them to play at the FIFA Confederation Cup in Brazil.
“In Brazil, you will notice that, the Eagles dominated play in all the three games played, this is the character I been building into the team in the last 19 months that I took over as chief coach. And I know for sure that, when we get to the 2014 World Cup, the boys will get better.”
The coach noted that, the Eagles failed to fly at the Confederations Cup in Brazil, not because of the issue of the bonus row but largely due to the tiring flight schedules of the team as they travelled almost round the world camping, playing friendlies and World Cup qualifiers.
“My players were tired out in Brazil, but only managed to play those games.”
The coach also spoke on his relationship with the Eagles captain Joseph Yobo, which he said has been strictly mutual and professional.
He added that, his problem with Joseph Yobo stemmed from the fact that, in the new Eagles team, he cherishes young ambitious players with no distractions. But this seems not to be the case with Yobo.
“I also do not want to demean the Eagles captain by inviting him to the national team and keeping him on the bench while younger players take to the pitch. That would be insulting. No one did that to me during my days in the Eagles as team captain.
“The only time this happened was at the 1994 World Cup when I was injured and Chidi Nwanu played my position. I respect Yobo a lot, he is still our captain and very soon he would start making the team so that, he could achieve his 100 caps target in the national team which would be a plus, not only to him but to the country at large.”
The ‘Big Boss’ as fondly called also urged national football federations in Africa to give credible ex-internationals the opportunity to coach the national teams, and reduce the over dependence on foreign coaches who are less committal to the cause of developing African football.
