Oliseh lauds Nigeria’s performance at Rio 2016
The 1996 gold winner believes the team could serve as the building blocks to the future.
“Nigeria had a good tournament if you take into account all the problems they ran into before the competition,” Oliseh, a member of the FIFA Technical Study Group told fifa.com.
“The players can be proud of finishing third.
“Winning this medal is magnificent for Nigerian football. We won gold in 1996 and silver in 2008, so we just needed a bronze for our collection. Now we’ve got them all.”
Oliseh also added that he saw some excellent performances from some of the players chosen by Samson Siasia.
“There are some excellent individual players in this team,” said Oliseh, who coached the national team for seven months.
“I’ve enjoyed watching Abdullahi Shehu at the back, who entertained us all when he got up to support the attack.
“Okechukwu Azubuike also caught my eye, as did Sadiq Umar, who was very solid in the role of forward. There’s quality running right through this team.
“Collectively, they’ve also had some nice moments during the tournament, but unfortunately the match against Germany revealed their limitations,” he added.
The team got to Manaus just hours before their first game against Japan, which they won 5-4. There was also the lack of motivation from the Nigeria Football Federation and the Nigeria Olympic Committee.
But they weathered all the above to win Nigeria’s sole medal at the games. It is definitely kudos the Siasia and his boys.
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