Why Eagles played poorly –Keshi

Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi has responded to views by many spectators that the World Cup qualifying match between Nigeria and Ethiopia was not as entertaining as expected. The Nigeria manager, who spoke after the game the Eagles won by 2-0 in Calabar on Saturday,  said that the pressure of not making any costly mistake took its toll on the players.

He said, “Yes the game may not have been as smooth and as entertaining as the spectators wanted to be. That I agree with you. But there was a whole lot of pressure on the players not to slip in this last game after having a good run all through. At this stage we thought that bad style or a  lack of finesse should not count. What we wanted was to get the result and be in Brazil. And that was exactly what we got.

“We have a lot of games to play between now and the World Cup and those matches can’t be like this one. When it gets to this stage what matters is to use the basic technique in the books to secure the result and move on. The beautiful will continue soon.”

Keshi said the style of the Ethiopians added up to making the game beautiful. He said it was clear their opponents were determined to stay back and defend in numbers and that made  a free flowing game difficult.

“We thought they would rush out after the first goal but they didn’t do that and so the game continued in the same pattern. If they moved out in a way that suggested they wanted to beat us the pitch would have been more open and then the style could have changed.”

Comparing the value of the World Cup ticket he just secured with Nigeria and the one he got as the coach of Togo for Germany 2006, Keshi said both achievements were special to him but the one with Togo was unique.

“It is special to qualify for the biggest football event; both getting the tickets means a lot to me. With Nigeria we started virtually from the scratch to assemble a team that could go this far and so I am very proud reaching this level. And that is special. But with Togo you know that we had nearly an all-home based players and a country that had never reached that level and so it was very emotional for me. It’s unique and stands out because we virtually got the ticket from nothing. But Nigerians are used to being at the World Cup and the players more exposed kind of.”

On Saturday Keshi became the first African coach to qualify two countries for  the World Cup and the first African player to qualify as a captain and then a coach.

PUNCH