Former Super Eagles Captain, Sunday Oliseh, has said it loud and clear that the Nigerian league players paraded by Super Eagles Coach, Stephen Keshi, in the ongoing FIFA Confederations Cup were not ready and also not ripe for such big tournament.
Oliseh made this revelation while commenting on the performance of the Super Eagles in Nigeria’s 3-0 humiliation in the hands of World and European champions, Spain.
The former Eagles skipper, speaking on a Super Sport programme on Sunday, said the home based-Eagles’ performance in the tournament did not meet the expected standard.
According to him: “The home-based players need fine tuning with many matches to be able to compete favourably with the oversees based ones despite having the potentials to be great players.”
The former Juventus midfielder however blamed the low quality of the performance of the local players in the Eagles on the quality of players produced by the Nigeria Premier League.
He said: “During our time in Nigerian elite league, we attracted large turnout of fans into Nigerian stadia who trooped out on weekends to watch us play.
“But now it is no longer so.
“Fans prefer to watch English Premier League matches involving Manchester United, Chelsea and the rest.
“If you ask these Nigerian fans to mention some Nigerian local league players, they won’t be able to do so unlike EPL clubs.
“So we need to revive as well as improve on the quality of our league to be able to produce quality player.”
Nigerian League players not ripe for Confederations Cup – Oliseh
