THE Super Eagles might have won Saturday’s game against the Flames of Malawi 2-0 in Calabar to move to the final round of Brazil 2014 World Cup qualifying series, head coach Stephen Keshi has described the day’s selection as the hardest he had to make in his two years in charge.
Keshi told a post match press conference that the fact that he had all 23 players fit and ready gave him a headache. “Since I got this job, I had never had such a headache selecting my team. I had all my players fit and ready and it was agonising picking 11 to start the game.
There is no room for sentiments in such a situation.’’ Although, it was a tough one, Keshi noted that it was a kind of situation that a coach would naturally like.
“For this team, I would like to have at least three players fighting for one position.” Reviewing Saturday’s game, Keshi observed the aggression characteristic of Nigerian team was gradually coming back to the Eagles.
“Whenever we lost the ball, in no time we fought to have it back, that shows we are reclaiming our aggressive instinct in the national team.’’
Keshi also pledged to work more on quick attacking build-up for the Eagles, noting that the pair of Victor Moses and Mikel Obi delayed forward movement of Nnmadi Oduamadi, thereby denying the Eagles opportunity to score more goals.
“Oduamadi is a workaholic, but he did not get enough passes from Mikel and Moses that could have seen us scoring more goals.’’ Keshi also lamented having to play against 10-man Malawi.
“It is a very dangerous way to play, football is a game of 11 against 11, but when your opponents have a red card, you have to be careful. The Malawians spent most of the time defending their goal area and that made it very difficult for us.’’
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