Ex-Super Eagles player, Sunday Oliseh, has showered encomiums on Stephen Keshi, for restoring self-respect to Nigerian football since he took over as Head Coach of the Super Eagles two years ago.
Oliseh said before the advent of the Keshi era, Nigerian football was at its lowest ebb culminating into non-qualification of the country for 2012 Africa Nations Cup.
“Keshi’s reign has been very successful. Let’s look at it this way, before he came, we didn’t even qualify fothe (Africa) Nations Cup. But when he took over the team, we did not just qualify for the 2013 edition, but won it. It doesn’t matter what contrary view anyone could hold. He won it for us.
“He also qualified us to the World Cup. How else would anybody measure his success if not with those statistics?” he asked.
Oliseh also thumped up Keshi for believing in the home-based players, which has opened the doors for many unknown Nigerian players languishing in the local league.
He said Keshi’s firm belief in the local players paid dividends with the exploits of the Super Eagles team B at the ongoing Africa Nations Championship (CHAN) in South Africa.
Oliseh tongue-lashed those who didn’t believe Keshi would be successful in Nigeria simply because his last reigns in Mali earlier didn’t yield much.
“This is what I always say. You can’t start being negative without giving the person a chance to prove himself. Why shouldn’t we believe he would do something successful when we appointed him? What reason do we have not to have believed?” he asked.
He wouldn’t be drawn into predicting how far Nigeria will go in the World Cup in June.