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| Stephen Keshi |
LIKE butterflies, Keshi’s Eagles (so
they were until they secured the semi-final ticket, having beaten the
impossible Elephants of Ivory Coast), had a wobbling, staggering and rather
crash-doomed flight into the AFCON 2013 tourney. In fact, except for a few
soothsayers here and there who stuck to their unpopular visions, an
overwhelming majority of Nigerians were merely counting days for Keshi and his
team to crash off and return in expected ignominy.
To our pleasant surprise, however, the tide
reversed and the chorus changed in favour of our dearly beloved Super Eagles in
whom we are now well pleased after flying past Mali in the semi- final to
claw-tear Burkina Faso in the final, bringing home the trophy of victory after
19 years of painful elusion. Such is the beauty of victory, a friend to all as
opposed to failure, the leper in the city.
As
any sport enthusiast would noticed about him, Keshi is not immune to
embarrassing situations of job loss but his incredible strength of character to
weather the storm and bounce back with success in his next position defines his
persona.
Starting
his career with the defunct African Continental Bank (ACB) football club of
Lagos and later New Nigeria Bank (NNB) Football Club of Benin, provided a lever
to propel him towards a fruitful career. Short stints with NNB FC which
dominated the WAFU Cup competition in the eighties broaden his horizons and
afforded him the ability to play alongside gifted players like Henry Nwosu.
But
beyond national team football where his charm and command set him apart, Keshi
was a true ambassador of club football and along with one of his assistant
coaches today, Sylvanus Okpalla, they were pioneers in seeking new frontiers to
flaunt their skills and clutch new pastures in Europe. For Keshi, it was a
circumstantial plunge to play outside, having been suspended by the Nigeria
Football Association under the inimitable and visionary leadership of the late
Air Commodore Anthony Ikazoboh for holding the nation to ransom and failing to
honour a national team invitation in time.
Thus,
Keshi and his clique then were meant to suffer the penalty that came from
suspension. Looking back, it appeared to be a blessing in disguise as Keshi
reignited the glow in his football career in Abidjan, Ivory Coast with Stella
FC from where he left to Belgium and became not only the biggest Nigerian
export to Europe but also an inspiring captain of Anderlecht FC.
His
success as a Nigerian player was erratic but he proved his point as a key
player of the Nigerian national team and appeared at the 1994 FIFA World Cup,
played in five African Cup of Nations championships and was a part of the team,
when they won the 1994 African Cup of Nations.
After a playing career mostly with Belgian clubs, Keshi went to
the United States to be educated in coaching.
In 1996, he was joined by Augustine Eguavoen, who once coached the
Nigerian national team. They played together in California as the backbone of
the defense for the short-lived Sacramento Scorpions. Keshi has been a part of
the coaching staff for the Nigerian national team, most notably as head coach
for the Junior Eagles at the 2001 African Youth Championship which also served
as qualification for the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship, without success.
Between 2004 and 2006 Keshi coached the Togo national football
team, unexpectedly bringing them to their first World Cup tournament, Germany
2006. Having secured Togo’s unlikely qualification, he was promptly replaced by
German coach Otto Pfister prior to the World Cup finals, after Togo showed a
dismal performance and failed to advance to the knock-out stage in 2006 African
Cup of Nations in Egypt.
However, Pfister did not last beyond a controversial World Cup
campaign that nearly resulted in a player’s strike over pay and Togo remained
without a manager until February 2007 when they re-engaged Keshi in time for a
friendly against Cameroon.
He worked as manager of the Mali national football team, after
being appointed in April 2008 on a two-year deal. Keshi was sacked in January
2010, after Mali’s early exit in the group stages of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Notably,
other countries have been critical in Keshi’s turn around. Ivory Coast,
Belgium', United states, Cameroun, Mali and lately Togo where he cracked his
kernel as coach by qualifying the Hawks to the World Cup without taking them
there; just as it was in 2002 when assisting coach Shuaib Amodu with whom he
could not lead the Super Eagles to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
paints a picture of an African coach who has paid his dues and deserves his
due.
Keshi
has made history as the second only African to win the Nations Cup as a player
and as a coach. He led Eagles to beat Burkina Faso 1-0 in the Nations Cup
final. The child born fifty-one years ago at Ilah, Delta State of Nigeria has
become a legend of the game. His selflessness and patriotism may have no doubt,
made him stand out so much that even at this point when being celebrated, he
still thinks about the future of his team and those who have made his
turnaround worth the toast.
He
has proven the critics wrong by his achievements so far, lending credence to
the fact that home grown, otherwise known as local coaches, can more than hold
their own with the foreign counterparts in the coaching business. African
countries have been known to favour the whites for their coaches but with
respect to the ACN title, the African coaches have proved their worth as they
have accumulated a massive fifteen titles to their fourteen.
Keshi was marked for sack and targeted for
disgrace. The power that be had plotted his grounding but the dogged Big Boss,
finally climbed the slippery ladder to the victorious tops. Having waved
through the thick cloud of controversy over his job security as the Super
Eagles head coach, one cannot but agree with the sage, Aliu Adams that
"even in the dark, the bright will shine". Stephen Keshi looks
destined to always shine forth as a ray of light, no matter how dark the cloud
may be, here’s a toast to a local who has made it to the global sphere with
a bang! ... Making SENSE of digital revolution!
