Adegoke berates administrators for poor quality of goalkeepers in national team

Former Green Eagles winger, Adelabu Adegoke, has expressed sadness over the lack of quality goalkeepers in the national team with less than eight months to next year’s World Cup in Russia.

Reacting to the concern expressed by Nigerians on the ‘poor quality’ of goalkeepers currently in the Super Eagles’ camp, Adegoke told The Guardian at the weekend that it was unfortunate that such complaints should arise with some months to the World Cup.

“As a nation, should we be talking about goalkeeping errors in a country of over 180 million? Does it mean we cannot get a locally trained goalkeeper to do the job well for us?

“In this country, we are not deliberate in our approach to things. Our attitude has always been to qualify and play at the World Cup. By now we should be training with the intention of winning the cup,” he said.

Adegoke questioned the attitude of Nigerian football administrators to advice from those they call outsiders, noting, “We play gods all the time… should we now wait for 30 people to come and play for Nigeria before we can pick one? By now we should have sufficient goalkeepers that are trained up to the World Cup level. And we said we have leagues, does it mean that there are no good goalkeepers from there?”