Angry Keshi Resumes Training In Lima

Super Eagles boss, Stephen Keshi, who after every game usually gives his players a day off training has broken that rule by dragging the player back to the Estadio Nacional in Lima, for a trainning session Thursday 10:00 am, Peruvian time as the team awaits its departure on Friday morning after its 1-0 loss to the hosts in an international friendly on Wednesday night.

Keshi told the players that he was breaking the rule because they failed to rise up to the occassion on the night despite the torrid condition under which the team arrived Lima for the encounter. Only Gege Soriola, Obiorah Nwankwo and Raheem Lawal, who are travelling early on Wednesday to rejoin their clubsides in South Africa, Spain and Italy were exempted from the training.

Keshi said he expected a better performance from his wards in the first half of the encounter but they went to sleep. “We can talk about jet-lag and all that but there is always a reason for failure and I hate failures. In my entire career as a player and a coach, I have never lost two matches consecutively, that is why we must regard this as the very last loss of this new order and return to training on Wednesday morning with an eye on victory at all times”, he yelled.

Keshi announced later that the foreign based quartet of Nnamdi Oduamadi, who led his Torino side to the Italian serie A promotion recently, Gege Soriola of Free State Warriors in South Africa, Atletico Belares’ Raheem Lawal and Obiorah Nwankwo of Parma of Italy, who is on loan at AS Gubbio, are to report to camp in Calabar latest Sunday evening. Only Lawal, who has a game on Sunday was permitted to report on Monday morning.

The coach is also expected to on arrival from Lima, announce the make up of the home-based squad for the tight three-way qualifiers against Namibia, Malawi and Rwanda. “We have no time now and we must pick a team quickly and concentrate on them, that is what we would do when we get to Nigeria for the qualifiers”, he said in Lima.