Some times i wonder if Nigeria will ever produce a player like him again. Okocha is indeed one of the greatest footballers Nigeria has ever produced. He is a phenomenal and a living legend.
No wonder he was listed in the FIFA 100 – Pele’s list of the greatest living football players of all time. He was also listed in FIFA world cup squad in 1994 where he showed class against Italy with his amazing signature dribbling and won the BBC Africa player of the year award in 2004 and 2005. Okocha was dominated as the Nigeria player of the year award for nearly a decade, winning it for a record 7 times in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.
I just have to mention a few for time to allow me analyze our current crop of midfielders especially in this world cup Brazil,2014. I wished our midfielders borrowed a leaf from Austin Okocha.
Why would a player be called a midfielder if the player cannot hold the ball and create ? I have seen Super Eagles play aimless football recently and i began wondering if they ever trained at all .
Who is Super Eagles play maker ? Who takes responsibility when things go wrong in Nigerian Midfield ? I watched Nigeria play against Iran and i almost ran mad . I had waited for that game with so much excitement and having our exploits at South Africa in mind really deceived me . I was really disappointed . Our boys (the ones in midfield) started playing aerial balls in just 15mins of play . So much that even when they saw it was not working , they kept doing it. They simply had no pattern and the Coach had ran out of ideas . If not what was a player like Azeez doing on the pitch when it was obvious he was playing against his team ? You as a coach knew you needed to win your first match and you started a lone striker , You saw it was not working and yet there was absolutely nothing you did to salvage the situation.
The truth is Keshi has pride and this world cup will expose so many things . I wrote in my post sometime ago that how far we will get at the world cup depends on the caliber of players we are taking to the world cup.
I saw many players who do not have any business being in the Nigerian team but they where carefully selected at the expense of people who are doing exceptionally well in Europe. Keshi replaced some of the good players he had with players that are worst off .We were made to understand that he (Keshi) had selected the best squad going into this world cup and we believed .Thank God the world cup is here and It's indeed time for the world to see, no time to hide .We need to see players show class and proof why they are better than the likes of Sunday Mba, Ideye, Ike Uche etc that was dropped by him. we will all watch this team play Bosnia tomorrow and by then i will make my conclusions . As always i wish them best of luck !
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