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Steven Okechukwu Keshi, Nigeria’s football hero, suddenly dies at the age of 54 leaving fans, Africa and world football community shocked and mourning
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Jun 20, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
NIGERIANS and many fans of Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, former captain and chief coach of Super Eagles, across the world are heartbroken. The news of his death on Wednesday, June 8, shattered the good news that he will soon become the next coach of Orlando Pirates, South African club side. Nigerians were waiting for the confirmation of the report of his new contract in South Africa, when the news of his sudden demise through cardiac arrest hit the world and threw the football world into shock and mourning.
Prior to his death in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, Keshi, 54, had left indelible footprints on the sands of time. Right from his emergence in Nigerian football in the early 1980s, he reshaped the country’s game both as a player and coach, but it sure came with a price. Resistant and usually bias officials saw him as a rebel who was out to alter the status quo.
As a starry-eyed youngster, Keshi’s impact on the national team from the Flying Eagles to Super Eagles was colossal and when his teammates were afraid to fight for their rights and bonuses from the authorities, Keshi did it for them. He was a leader on the pitch and off the pitch. He also led by example, prompting his nickname “Big Boss”.
From his playing days through his 44 months in charge of the national team between 2011 and 2014 as coach, he was always involved in one spat or the other with the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF. His first major issue with the authorities was in 1984, when he and several others of his New Nigeria Bank FC teammates were expelled from the national team, after reporting late to camp. But it helped to chart a new course in his illustrious career, and by extension, that of many other African players.
Keshi left for Ivory Coast, first playing for Stade Abidjan, then Africa Sports. But it was when he joined Belgian side Lokeren that he, once again, charted a new course for Nigerian footballers. His sojourn in Belgium opened the door for a lot of his national teammates like Ademola Adeshina, Yisa Shofoluwe, Ndubuisi Okosieme, Austin Eguavoen and a sizeable number of other players to ply their trade in the European country.
Of course, the national team, where he was expelled from, was the benefactor, as the better-exposed players brought in their European experience to bear on the team. Keshi went on to play for Anderlecht where he won two cups and a league title, Strasbourg, Molenbeek, Hydra, Sacramento Scorpions and Perlis FA, where he quit club football in 1998.
Fittingly, Keshi captained Nigeria to a second AFCON title. The team’s first on an away soil in 1994 and also led the team to qualify for a first ever World Cup same year. He ended his international career in 1994, his last game being the Eagles final group game against Greece at the World Cup. He ended his national team career on a high, as the Eagles beat Greece to advance to the Round of 16. At 32, he moved to the US, in his final playing days while studying as a coach.
He was given the Eagles assistant coach job between 2000 and 2002 serving under Dutchman Joe Bonfrere and Amodu Shuiabu. After helping the team to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, Keshi was dropped alongside Shuaibu and several other players, from the trip to Korea and Japan. Keshi looked abroad again, this time, to coach Togo.
In a baffling fashion, the Delta-born coach, against all odds, qualified the minnows for the 2006 World Cup, a competition Nigeria couldn’t qualify for. He went on to coach Mali, before he was engaged as the Eagles coach in 2011.
Once again, Keshi would turn Nigeria’s messiah. After a 19-year wait for a third African title, Keshi, with a crop of new and largely inexperienced players, did the unimaginable, when he won the AFCON in 2013, the first and only Nigerian to achieve the feat in South Africa. His success didn’t seem to go down well with NFF officials, who reportedly wanted him out; and a smart Keshi resigned from his post before ex-President Goodluck Jonathan waded in.
The feat made the Big Boss one of the most successful black African coaches of all time. He entered the record books as one of only two people to have won the Cup of Nations as a player and manager, and the only black African to coach in the knockout phase of a World Cup tournament.
But, Keshi failed to qualify Nigeria to defend the AFCON title in 2015 and officials capitalised on the failure and a reported application for the Ivory Coast coaching job led to his firing as Eagles coach in July last year. Five months later, he lost his wife of 33 years, Kate, and his close friends said he never got over it before his death in Benin City on Wednesday.
Many Nigerians and football icons have commiserated with the family and Nigeria over the lost of one of its legends. President Muhammadu Buhari commiserated with the family of Keshi and Nigerians. According to a post on the Presidency official social media handle, President Buhari lamented that “Nigeria today (Wednesday) lost a great sportsman, football player, coach and citizen. Nigerian football will not be the same without Stephen Keshi. He gave this country his all. May his soul rest in peace,” he said.
Issa Hayatou, president, Confederation of African Football, CAF, also condoled with the NFF and Nigerians on the death of Keshi. Hayatou in a statement on CAF website expressed his dismay and immense sadness at the death of the former Eagles’ captain. He paid glowing tribute to the deceased, who was the only African coach to qualify two African teams to the World Cup, Togo in 2006 and Nigeria in 2014.
“His other enviable record was being the only African trainer to have steered a team to the Second Round of the FIFA World Cup, with Nigeria at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. He had achieved the same feat as a player with the Super Eagles at the country’s maiden participation at the Mundial in 1994, in USA.
The CAF president conveyed the condolences on his own behalf, the CAF Executive Committee and African football family on the demise of Keshi, who was a jewel to his family, friends and the Nigerian football family, who are badly affected. This is a man, who was twice winner of the Africa Cup of Nations with Nigeria; in 1994 as captain and in 2013 as a coach, with the latter earning him the distinction of Coach of the Year at the Glo-CAF Awards.”
Mutiu Adepoju, former Super Eagles midfielder, has said that most of them were looking up to Keshi as a role model in the national team. “Before we joined the national team, we were all looking up to him as captain. He was such a cool and calm person who never talked too much while in the team. He was very firm and nice to all of us when we joined the team. He was respected on the team because of the way he carried himself,” he said.
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