30th January, 2014
Coach Maxwell Konadu of Ghana says Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, is still the best coach in Africa.
This he noted was in spite of the defeat of the Super Eagles, 4-1 on penalties, by his team in the African Nations Championship (CHAN) semi final match.
With the defeat, Ghana would now meet Libya which qualified at the expense of Zimbabwe while Nigeria would have to fight for the third place with the Zimbabweans that had earlier lost to Libya.
Konadu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Bloemfontein, South Africa, that Keshi had achieved a good record of nurturing local players and exposing them to international match situations.
“I do not think this game will change his status in Africa. I know Nigerians are behind him. They all respect him and what he has done with the local team.
“We know how African football is and I had said that he (Keshi) is the kind of man we need in African football.
“We all follow his steps and we are all learning from him as well. This is just but one match, I do not think, the outcome has changed his status,’’ he said.
Keshi also said that his players did very well, in spite of losing to Ghana in the semifinals.
“This team has only been together for about six weeks. I am beginning to fall in love with them. And I know if I stay six months with them, they will become what I want them to be.
“I salute them for what they did for Nigeria and for themselves. They have been able to express themselves.”
Speaking on the semi final clash, Konadu said that “we purposely stretched the match into penalty shootout because we knew that Nigeria did not know how to play penalty.
Konadu said that although the Eagles were better tactically, the team lacked penalty shootout scoring skill.
According to him, the Eagles would have scored within the 90 minutes time of the match but his boys matched them one on one to stretch the match to the penalty shootout.
NAN reports that the forcefully contested match was marred with several yellow cards and one red card against the Stars with many players on each side seriously injured.
The Eagles, however, failed to utilise the 11 players against 10 for about 70 minutes to score during the match.
Coach Stephen Keshi said that he was looking forward for the third place match on Saturday against Zimbabwe.
The third and the final matches will be played at Cape Township Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday.