It was a surprise dinner evening for national team players on Friday evening as Coach Stephen Okechukwu Keshi put a call across when the team was gathered and asked to speak to the entire team through teleconference.
Assistant Coach, Dan ‘The Bull’ Amokachi, and Team Coordinator, Emmanuel Attah, moderated the interaction.
Keshi, who is presently holidaying in Benin City, Edo State, told the players to take instructions from his assistants, Amokachi, Houandonou Valere and Ike Shorunmu, seriously and play according to instructions.
He added that he believes in the present home based squad to acquit themselves well against Cote D’ Ivoire and Sudan, adding that they should show no respect to big names, because such names no longer play football but current form does.
He was quoted add telling the team: “The players you are going to play against don’t have two heads or four legs and they are not more talented than you.
“So you can beat them and tell them that football is not dead in Nigeria.”
The players, led by Chigozie Agbim, promised to do the country proud.
The conversation is regarded as a sign that the team remains in the mind of the national team handler, even when he is yet to put pen to paper for a new contract.
The national team will on Monday morning take on the National Youth Service Corps soccer team in a test match at the Abuja National Stadium in the Federal Capital.
The game is being packaged for the team to test its readiness for the two important friendlies coming up next week in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The sports loving Director General of the NYSC, Brigadier General Johnson Olawumi, obliged the Eagles despite the team’s tight schedule and the fact that the yuletide season just ended.
The game will afford the technical crew an insight into those players that will make it to the UAE for the friendlies and the overall fitness of the team.
Trending
- Fire guts Governor’s aide’s office inside Government House
- Counter-Terrorism: Ribadu calls for enhanced intelligence sharing in Africa
- FG appoints CDAs, Consuls-General + Full list, posting
- Rebuild, return mosque converted to market — MURIC
- Naira loses 5.3% against dollar at official market
- Rivers: Police nab vigilante Commander, executives for robbery, vandalism
- Patients at Maiduguri Specialist Hospital fetch water as borehole breaks down + Photos
- Sierra Leone throws support to Morocco’s initiatives on Western Sahara