We expect battle from Malawi – Keshi

Super Eagles Coach, Stephen Keshi
 

Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, expects the Flames of Malawi to put up their best fight when they play against Nigeria in the Word Cup qualifier in Calabar on Saturday.

Keshi led the team in another training session in the rain on Thursday, making it twice they would defy nature to prepare for the crucial game.

“I’m expecting them (Malawi) to fight like they never did before. They need to win, while we’re okay with a draw,” Keshi said after the training session.

“I’m happy my players are eager to get the job done. This is the first time I’m having a full house and it has presented me several options on the tactics to adopt.”

Keshi said he was satisfied with what he saw in the training but insisted no player would be guaranteed a starting role on the match day.

“It is wrong for a player to think all he needs to do to get a role in the Super Eagles is to show up for matches,” he said.

“When I was still young at the age of 18 or 19, coming into the national team to play with Sylvanus Okpala, Segun Odegbami, Mudashiru Lawal, Franklin Howard and Aloysius Atuegbu, I could see how these players fought for roles in the team during training sessions. I recall how Kadiri Ikhana would train very hard just to retain his position in the team; that was how we had a very good team.

“That practice continued through the (Clemens) Westerhof period, when there was no assurance of any player getting an automatic role.

“I was playing in Europe then, but Westerhof would tell me, ‘Hey, if you don’t play good, you won’t make the team. You’re my captain but no good play, no shirt.’ He was right, so I had to give everything I had in training to keep my position. That attitude helped us during our era. And that’s how it is everywhere in the world.”

The former Togo coach said building the team with players from the Nigerian league had helped in strengthening the squad and given it stability.

“It’s a shame that the players in the domestic league were not given more time in the national team to prove themselves. I had to go back and look into that because I believe that 99.99 per cent of the players that had played for Nigeria were from the domestic league. So how can anyone tell me that with our 140 million people we can’t have good home-based players playing in the national team. We might as well cancel the league.

“I don’t know if they (former Super Eagles coaches) were scared or not, but in every other country I had worked, I had to start building the national teams from the domestic leagues. The more you give opportunities to the domestic league players, the better the national team would be. It was like that in Mali and Togo so I had to do the same thing in Nigeria.

“I can understand some of the coaches for snubbing the players because it is not an easy thing to do. The players are very raw and need to be refined. They need to be instilled with confidence and taught new things. All these things take time, and most of our coaches probably didn’t have time for that so they relied on foreign-based players. I also rely on foreign-based players but they must start from home.”