The Super Eagles head coach, Steven Keshi, has said that he would
\nnot \u2018prostrate\u2019 for any player to play for the senior national team.<\/p>\n
Keshi made the declaration at the team\u2019s media parley in
\nAbuja ahead of its friendly game against the Menas of Niger on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo coach ever begged me to play for the Eagles and as a
\ncoach; I will not beg any player to play for Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have many players in Nigeria and as such we have to know
\nwho is ready to come in and play,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
He said that he chose the Niger friendly not necessarily
\nbecause of the outcome but because of its relevance to the country.<\/p>\n
The friendly, he said, was to prepare the Super Eagles for
\nthe Nations Cup qualifier against the Lone Stars of Liberia on September 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have played the Nigerien when I was with the Togo and
\nMali national teams. They play similar football with Liberia by keeping the
\nball on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main objective is to see how to unite the home-based
\nplayers before the game against Liberia and the outcome is not my concern but
\nthat does not mean we will lose the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also want to use the friendly to build the confidence of
\nthe home-based players,\u2019\u2019 Keshi explained.<\/p>\n
On his decision to sideline some foreign-based players,
\nespecially Mikel Obi and Osaze Odemwingie, Keshi said it was not based on
\nsentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy decision to sideline some foreign-based players is not
\non sentiment but to determine the commitment of the home-based players to the
\nnational team and their current form.<\/p>\n
He said that the condition given by some foreign-based
\nplayers before deciding whether to play or not was not healthy for the
\ndevelopment of the game in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is by choice, you take or leave it and if you say you
\nare tired of playing for the Super Eagles, with due respect, we will let you
\ngo. But if you have decided to play, you must give us what we wanted. \u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The team will tomorrow depart Abuja for Niamey for the
\nfriendlygame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Super Eagles head coach, Steven Keshi, has said that he would not \u2018prostrate\u2019 for any player to play for the senior national team. Keshi made the declaration at the team\u2019s media parley in Abuja ahead of its friendly game against the Menas of Niger on Wednesday. \u201cNo coach ever begged me to play for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-city-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}