By Patrick Omorodion
Former Super Eagles midfielder, Moses Kpakor has called on those managing football in the country as well as football loving Nigerians to accord the team’s chief coach, Stephen Keshi the same respect and patience they gave to former Dutch handler, Clemens Westerhof.

Kpakor, who was one of the pillars of the Westerhof’s Eagles in the 1990s opined that Keshi needs about four to six years to build a solid team that could churn out good results just as Westerhof did before he started getting results.

Keshi

“Keshi is on the right path and the football house (Nigeria Football Federation, NFF) and Nigerians should support him earnestly. I think this was how Westerhof began and gave us the elusive World Cup ticket as well as the Nations Cup trophy on foreign soil (in Tunisia in 1994),” Kpakor wrote to Saturday Vanguard sports from his base in Benue State.

The former BCC Lions of Gboko midfielder, who has trained as a coach at the Nigeria Institute for Sports in Lagos and now studying Human Kinetics and Health Education at the Benue State University,  said Keshi was part of the Westerhof success story and is in a position to succeed like his former coach.

“You see we must all be patient with Keshi just as we were with Westerhof. I mean Keshi needs about four to six years to give us assured results. Westerhof was in charge from 1989 to 1994 and that (the long duration) helped him succeed,” he said, stressing, “Keshi was part of Westerhof’s plans and now he is positioned in the best way to succeed with it as well.”

On whether he will return to football, Kpakor said, “I’m studying at the Benue State University, reading Human Kinetics and Health Education and will be graduating next year. I may return to football after my Masters degree. These are my plans for now.”

If the interview the 1990 Mandela Cup winner granted recently is anything to go by, then he may have kissed football good bye to return to his first love, which is teaching.

“I returned to school basically because I realised that football was changing everyday. A lot of changes have taken place in the game and what I had before now was no longer good enough for me.

Having retired from the game, I found out that there was nothing for me to hold on to at the end of the day. The idea of going to school is to improve myself because I just have to start my life afresh” he had said.