CHAN Eagles can make World Cup team – Keshi

Is the recent call-up of new players to the Super Eagles camp an indication that other good players may still be invited? If you are good and playing for your team every week you will have a place in our team. We called this present set of players because my assistants did recommend them, they […]

Is the recent call-up of new players to the Super Eagles camp an indication that other good players may still be invited?
If you are good and playing for your team every week you will have a place in our team. We called this present set of players because my assistants did recommend them, they never gave me bad advice and I trust their judgement. We don’t have a lot of time on our hand. We need players we can push up to meet the level we expect them to be.

Do you think you have a team now?
We are still looking for a team. We don’t have a team yet, because most of the players that were here that we were used to have gone abroad . What we are doing  now is to see how we can have a team.

Would you have loved the players acclimatize outside the country before CHAN?
We would have loved to leave Nigeria 10 days to the competition in South Africa but I am not sure that will happen. So what we have to do is to stay here, do the home work here and leave for South  Africa early January

With the situation on ground do you think you and the boys can bring the Cup home?
I would not want to deceive anybody. If I have what it takes I will tell you now. I am not saying we are going there to just add up to the number of participating teams. We don’t have what it takes now down the road, may be two or three weeks from now, we may be able to find something together. Right now I am not going to tell you we are going there to win the Cup. We will go, do Nigerians proud and if it comes out we win the Cup, so be it.

Is the absence of the key home-based players the reason for your doubts?
The absence of the key home- based players might be the reason that I am not sounding confident but just like you said about these boys, it is difficult to keep them. Even Kelechi Ihenacho,there was no way we could keep him because discussion has commenced before his invitation to camp. If it was the other way round I would not have allowed  him to go because we also need him here. Azubuike and co,we are begging them to stay a little bit till after CHAN, when they can leave. If they had gone everything will be at zero level. So we are trying to keep them here with the ones that have been with us for over a year. We are trying to get them ready.

What of the new players who might be having new opportunity in the January transfer window
I have not really spoken to all of them but the older ones that I know for a very long time have agreed to stay until CHAN is over. However, the newer ones I have not spoken to know their mindset, but I know everyone of them want to go. I don’t blame them, but it makes our job more difficult. Every day we have to bring in new players, we have to start from the beginning and it is tough.

How do you think this mass movement of our players abroad can be checked?
Our players will stay at home if they are paid good salaries. Most of them will not think of going outside the country. If as a player I am paid N5000 and outside the shore of the country I am offered N20,000 surely I will leave. But if a player is properly paid and the boys knows that if they stay they have the opportunity of playing in the national team, they would not want to leave. The lack of such incentive is the big problem

What is your personal target at CHAN?
Try winning game by game.
Aside the South Africa Championship what are your plans for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil?
We are trying to see if we can get our camping site in the United States of America. USA is not far from Brazil. The weather is very hot at that period too and if we can get that, that will be good too. That is the only information I can give you now.

Are there plans for some friendly matches for the World Cup team?
We have played against Iran and Argentina. The only team we have not played against is Bosnia Herzegovina. We will want to play against teams that play the same way our group opponents play and it depends if the opponents will be available.
When we were at the World Cup draws, Japan wanted to talk to me about a possible friendly but that is not what I want now but if we don’t get close to what we want we might opt for it.
The most important thing is to get to the stage and play your game. It doesn’t matter who we play at the group stage. It is going to be eleven against eleven. How we are going to perform is dependent on how determined we are, the desire we have in our mind to win the matches and you add a little bit of luck.
Every one in our group is good but why do you people think Argentina is the centre of our qualification? We have to play all the games. All we need to do is just have to be careful on how we approach each game. Iran is a good team. They qualified long before our qualification. Let us give this people respect. We prepare for each game, each has its own life.
  You know too that there is this FIFA rule on the number of days of grace for players to rest. We have to respect that, so if we cannot get a good match on the FIFA friendly match day, we have to do more of close door games, which is going to be more of practice games. We will find something out of it with few games. I pray we have four or five games ahead of the tourney.
There are lots of places to camp in USA, like Houston, Maimi and others that the temperature is the same with the places we are going to play in Brazil. But it depends on where the NFF and I agree to stay.

You are taking new players to CHAN. Is there any way they can break into your World Cup team?
Well that is my prayers but we are not bringing them in for CHAN alone. It is for the main team. If we see one or two or three of them that are good enough we will take them to the World Cup. CHAN is a competition for the home-based players to get better.