Stephen Keshi | Adieu to Nigeria’s football trailblazer

Stephen Keshi will be many things to many people – fellow players and either national or club administrators at the various points in his career but one unanimous position everyone will hold is that Keshi was truly a trail blazer.
So, it is with a deep heart that I write this. I never totally agreed with all he did as manager of the Super Eagles, but as a player, he was peerless.

He redefined the meaning of a defender in Nigerian parlance with his technique, versatility and passion. For him, every time he wore the colours of the country – it was time to give more than 100%.
He defined the early meaning of being a professional footballer to his generation and the one after.
I had the opportunity to watch this modern defender at his prime and the successful way he handed over the baton to those after him.
I also had the privilege of having an interview with him in 2013 as he prepared the home-based national team for CHAN and the 2014 World Cup, 20 years after he led the Super Eagles to the competition as captain.
From his emergence on the national team as a direct replacement for Christian Chukwu in 1982 to his flight to Cote d’Ivoire after his ban and the cross over to Belgium – Keshi was a fearless being, which makes it doubly painful, that he fell to a heart attack.
He was always ready to give people a chance as he told me in December 2013 as he prepared for the World Cup in Brazil.
“If you are a Nigerian player and you are good we will try and give you the chance though the problem is that we have only one friendly game to play before they will be invited to camp and not everybody can be invited at that time.
“And we cannot call everyone to camp but every Nigerian player will be given an opportunity to fight to represent the country. So the Eagles is not closed to any player – if you are playing regularly for your club, you have a chance,” he said.
And he truly opened the doors of the team to virtual unknowns. No one will ever forget the motley crew he took to South Africa in 2013 to win the Nations Cup plus all the harassment from the Nigeria Football Federation.
Players like Sunday Mba came to the limelight because he believed in both the locally based and the ones playing in obscure European nations.
He was recently linked with the prestigious South Africa team, Orlando Pirates but the sudden loss of his wife last December was said to have taken the fight out of him and on Wednesday morning, he gave up on this life.
In all that has been said and would be said of the ‘Big Boss’ in the coming hours and days, let it be unanimously stated that Nigeria and its football history would not be where it is today [a multi billion Naira enterprise] if not for the bold, energetic and adventurous spirit and fortitude displayed by Stephen Keshi – both as a player and as a manager!
Great Achievements

• Was Super Eagles captain at 21
• Is the longest serving captain of the national team; 1983 – 1994
• Led the defunct NNB FC to 3 consecutive WAFU cups
• Led Nigeria as captain to the 1994 AFCON triumph
• Is the second man ever to win the Nations Cup as a player and manager in 2013
• Led the Super Eagles to their first ever World Cup appearance in 2014
• Only African man to have coached two different nations to the World Cup