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Keshi, a trailblazer, whose ‘misfortune’ changed Nigerian football

By Christian Okpara
09 June 2016   |   5:09 am
Perhaps more than any other footballer, dead or living, Stephen Keshi was the architect of the new Nigerian football, which at one time was rated the fifth best country in the global game.
The late Stephen Keshi (right) exchanging pennants with former Cameroun Captain, Theophile Abega, before the final of the Cote d’Ivoire 1984 African Nations Cup.
The late Stephen Keshi (right) exchanging pennants with former Cameroun Captain, Theophile Abega, before the final of the Cote d’Ivoire 1984 African Nations Cup.

Perhaps more than any other footballer, dead or living, Stephen Keshi was the architect of the new Nigerian football, which at one time was rated the fifth best country in the global game. Between 1992 and 1998 Nigeria dominated African football such that the Super Eagles produced five African footballers of the year within this period.

However, the country attained such heights because fate played a ‘cruel’ game on the Big Boss.At the height of his power as the most influential player in Nigerian football in 1985, Keshi alongside four of his New Nigerian Bank team mates, Henry Nwosu, Sunday Eboigbe, Bright Omokaro and Humphrey Edobor, as well as Clement Temile, who was then playing for NNPC Warri, were suspended from football for one year by the Nigeria Football Association headed by Tony Ikhazaboh, on the orders of then Sports Minister, Emeka Omeruah.

Their offence was that the reported to camp late when the country was preparing for crucial Mexico 1986 World Cup qualifiers. But the NNB players were silently protesting the ‘injustice,’ which prevented them from playing a crucial league game against Calabar Rovers, while their main rivals for the 1984 league title, Enugu Rangers, had the full compliment of their stars in their matches. NNB lost the 1984 title to Enugu Rangers and Keshi and his mates blamed the NFF for their miss.

To Keshi, who was a mini-god in West African football then, one year without football was definitely out of the question so he packed his bags and moved to Cote d’Ivoire, where Stella of Abidjan gladly welcomed him with the captain’s armband.

He played for just one season for Stade before Cote d’Ivoire’s big club, African Sports, came calling for him. As was his case at Stade d’Abidjan, Keshi spent only season at African Sport before he moved to Lokeren of Belgium.

A lot of football followers have argued that perhaps if Keshi was not banned from Nigerian football in 1985, the revolution that saw the Super Eagles becoming the fifth best team in the world in 1995 would not have happened.

Keshi’s move to Lokeren led the way for the scramble for Nigerian players by Belgian and other European countries’ teams.Keshi was instrumental to the exodus of the country’s players to Belgium, which at a time was known as the ‘Mecca of Nigerian football’ owing to the number of the nation’s stars in the European country.

Some of these players included the Late Osaro Obobaifo, Peter Rufai, Augustine Eguavoen, Humphrey Edobor, Ndubuisi Okosieme, Christopher Nwosu and Phillip Osondu, among others.

Keshi was also instrumental to the movement of some Ghanaian and Beninoise players to Belgium. In fact, Keshi took Ghana’s Odartey Lamptey to Europe through Nigeria with the Black Stars’ midfielder posing as his son with a Nigerian passport en route Ander letch.

It is said that one man cannot singlehandedly claim responsibility for the fortune of a whole nation, but there is the argument that without Keshi’s forced exit from Nigerian football in 1985, it would have taken the Super Eagles longer time to reach their first FIFA World Cup. This is because the players who took Nigeria to the USA ’94 World Cup were either some of those helped to Europe by the Big Boss or the offshoots of his trailblazing move to Belgium in the 1980s.

Born on January 23, 1962, Keshi attended Finbarr’s College, Akoka, Lagos, from where he joined the African Continental Bank (ACB) Football Club as a schoolboy player.

Aside the New Nigeria Bank of Benin and the Ivoirian clubs, Keshi also played for Lokeren, Anderlecht, and RC Strasbourg.He started playing for Nigeria in 1978, starting with the Flying Eagles before moving to the Green Eagles in 1979.

Keshi missed the cut for the 1980 African Nations Cup hosted by Nigeria, but he returned to the Eagles in 1981 and became the team’s captain in 1982.

He led the senior national team until 1996 when he retired from the national team and relocated to the United States. After playing for some semi-professional American clubs, Keshi returned to Nigeria to become coach of the junior national team, the Flying Eagles. .

When the team did not qualify for the 2001 FIFA U-20 World Cup, he was drafted to the Super Eagles, where he assisted Coach Amodu Shaibu and Joe Erico. The trio qualified Nigeria for the 2002 World Cup, but due to differences with officials, they were relieved of their jobs.

However, he was out of job for a brief moment as Togo’s national team came calling for him. Between 2004 and 2006, Keshi coached the Togolese national team, surprisingly leading them to their first World Cup tournament, Germany 2006. But just as was the case in 2002, Keshi fell out with the Togolese authorities following a misunderstanding with the West African country’s top footballer, Emmanuel Adebayor.

He returned to handle the Togolese team briefly, before moving to Mali’s national team in 2008.Keshi was sacked in 2010 after Mali’s early exit in the group stages of the Africa Cup of Nations, but he came back to the Super Eagles in 2011. But now as the substantive coach of the team.

In 2013, Keshi made history when he became the first Nigerian to win the African Nations Cup when the Super Eagles beat Burkina Faso 1-0 to win the competition hosted by South Africa.

A year later, he made another history by becoming the first Nigerian coach to lead the Super Eagles to the second round of the FIFA World Cup.
However, soon after the Brazil 2014 World Cup, Keshi’s relationship with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) soured irreparably and it was only a matter of time before he was finally relieved of his position in July 2015.

In his 44 months in charge of the Super Eagles, Keshi won the Africa Cup of Nations, qualified the team for the FIFA World Cup finals, led the team at the FIFA Confederations Cup and steered the team to the Round of 16 at the FIFA World Cup.

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