First, I have to congratulate the Ghanaians for their victory which has qualified them for the final coming up on Saturday. Yes the goals didn't come, of course when you have two great sides playing, it always turns out a difficult game in which chances and goals don't come too often. You might just have a hence; it might even be a half opportunity. Today we saw two teams that were fighting practically the battle of their lives, so to say and it didn't quite come and that's how football is.
There was much hype about the Nigeria/Ghana rivalry before this game,do you think the outcome is a reflection of Ghana superiority?
(Cuts in) I disagree, it's a Ghana superiority over Nigeria. I don't think so. May be in those days before we started playing, during our age group, it was almost Ghana affair. Let us say the better side won today and I congratulate the Ghanaian team. Like I said during my press conference on Tuesday that you never know, we gonna wait until the end of 90 minutes and that's just it.
But your team played well to deserve victory…
We always try to play well in every game, we try to play it the way it should, adding value to the game which is why the fans come around to enjoy themselves, but it's not always who plays better that goes home with victory like you saw today. Luck and grace of God come in but my philosophy is to give value to the game through quality play and of course, get win at the end.
What positive do you take from this tournament as regards your young squad and plans for them especially going into the World Cup in Brazil?
Well, this team, should I call it a team, collection of players because this is our sixth week coming together. I'm beginning to fall in love with them. By the time I stay six months with them, they will become what I want from them and they will perform more than wonderful. What they did after the game with Mali was phenomenal, something that will take me six months, one year to build. In a couple of weeks they were showing me a lot of talents and I salute them, I respect them for what they did for Nigeria and for themselves. Because they needed to express and respect themselves because there's World Cup in front in five months from now. Of course, the highest any player can dream to achieve for himself is to play in the World Cup. I know most of them have the target to be at the World Cup in Brazil. But I have some names that are in my pocket. I won't tell you, I'll wait for a while before I release it. But it's been a good lesson, a learning curve and I'm sure it's their dream to play in the tournament.
You perhaps thought the game was on the dead when Ugochukwu came up with that smashing header that surprisingly tipped into corner by Ghana goalkeeper, Stephen Adams. What's your rating of the goalkeeper's performance?
I think the young goalkeeper did a wonderful job, and of course, that was reason he was there to do the job. He's there to stop goals, he's paid to stop goals, and his career is to save goals. He did a wonderful job and I would have loved it to be at the back of the net but when you see an outstanding goalkeeper like that, it can go in but it will take a time. That's what he has proved in this game, I think he's 60 percent Ghanaian team and I wish him well.
Did the outcome of this game dampen your spirit?
My spirit will not damage… You wanna kill me? I'm not ready to die now. Its football, you win some and you lose some. We lost today, for me we've got to move on because life goes on no matter what. You don't die on the field of play, someone is gonna continue.
The Big Boss, Ghana played for almost an hour with 10 men and expectation was the Eagles would take advantage of their advantage numerical strength but it didn't happen. Tell, us what really went wrong?
The fact we lost the game doesn't mean anything went wrong. Ghana/Nigeria game, you never can tell until the final whistle. Because they had one man sent off doesn't mean we're going to kill them. You
find out that in some other matches when a team is one man down that's when they dominate the game. Today the Ghanaian team was well organized behind, every player was falling behind just for us not to have a space to score which they did well. We didn't do too well in getting ourselves into the position where we had few chances to score. It happens so that was it.
Coach, the third place match comes up Saturday against Zimbabwe. Perhaps you will want to take something home from the tournament?
Yeah, Zimbabwe is a good side, just like Ghana so far in the tournament; they have conceded only one goal within regulation time. We gonna face them hoping to win and getting something home for our efforts but I must say such games (bronze matches) are always tough to play.
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Original source: KESHI: I'M IN LOVE WITH THESE EAGLES.
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