Stephen Keshi, 1962-2016

Recently, the Nigeria football fraternity was thrown into mourning with the sudden demise of former Super Eagles captain and coach, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi. He died at the age of 54 in the early hours of June 8 in Benin City after suffering cardiac arrest.  Born on the 23 of January 1962 in Azare, Bauchi State, […]

Recently, the Nigeria football fraternity was thrown into mourning with the sudden demise of former Super Eagles captain and coach, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi. He died at the age of 54 in the early hours of June 8 in Benin City after suffering cardiac arrest. 
Born on the 23 of January 1962 in Azare, Bauchi State, Keshi was the most accomplished Nigerian footballer of his generation.  He was one of only two people, along with Egypt’s Mahmoud El-Gohary, to have won the Africa Cup of Nations as both a player and a coach.
Keshi was a born leader, a football icon. An imposing central defender, he took games by the scruff of the neck and dictated matches from his position of influence as captain throughout much of his Super Eagles career. He marshaled a miserly Nigeria defence to the Africa Cup of Nations title in 1994 in Tunisia. Almost two decades later, he coached the national team to the same title.  He started his professional career as a defender in 1979 and was among the first set of Nigerians to play professional football abroad.
He was an outstanding centre-back, sweeping behind, or sometimes in front, of a back-four of defenders, as a libero. Widely known as “The Big Boss”, Keshi made his international debut in 1981 after captaining Nigeria’s junior national team. For the next 12 years or so, he became the anchor of the team and its leader, on and off the field. 
Keshi started his footballing career with ACB Lagos in 1979 and moved to the New Nigeria Bank of Benin (1980-84) where he rose to national limelight, helping his team to two consecutive WAFU Cup triumph. However, Keshi left Nigeria in 1985 to start an eventful and illustrious professional football career in Cote d’Ivoire and later in Europe that lasted well over 10 years. He plied his trade with different clubs such as Stade d’Abidjan (1985), Africa Sports (1986), Lokeren (1986-87), Anderlecht (1987-91), RC Strasbourg (1991-93), RWDM (1993-94), CCV Hydra (1995), Sacramento Scorpions (1996), and Perlis F A (1997-98). Within this period he amassed successes that embellish a career that may be unequalled in Nigeria’s football history.
After a playing career mostly with Belgian clubs, Keshi went to the United States to be educated in coaching. With many African countries looking for coaching experience from outside the continent to lead their countries at major tournaments, Keshi was a beacon of hope for coaches from the mother continent. Not only was he the first Nigerian to lead his country to the Nations Cup title, he was the first African coach to lead a team to the Round of 16 at a World Cup, achieving that feat at Brazil 2014.
After the 2014 World Cup, Keshi’s contract was not renewed but he later returned on a match-by-match deal following the team’s failure to reach the 2015 Nations Cup finals. He was then sacked as caretaker coach but reinstated after intervention from then President Goodluck Jonathan. He was sacked for a final time last July. He was married to his wife Nkem Kate Keshi for 33 years. She died on December 10, 2015, after battling cancer for three years. He is survived by four children and his mother.