By Eddie Akalonu
Coach Stephen Keshi should take the blame for Nigeria’s loss to Uruguay and Spain in the FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil, so said Brigadier-General Gregory Adebiyi, a one-time Nigeria Football Association, NFA vice chairman and chairman of it’s technical committee.

Gen. Adebiyi told Saturday Vanguard sports in an interview in Lagos that because Keshi’s decision to field home-based players who are inexperienced against the Spaniards clearly was ill-advised and exposed him as one who anticipated Spain’s mission in the competition poorly.

Keshi

“To me, Spain had a grudge against Nigeria going back to the France’98   World Cup when Nigeria defeated them 3-2. So it was no hidden fact that as European and world champions, Spain wanted to avenge and erase such dark spot in their football history especially as Nigeria was in the competition as African champions. It was definitely the best opportunity Spain got and because our team failed to face reality of the time, it worked to their favor,” he opined.

The one time director of the Nigeria Army Health and Physical Education department posited that “There was no reason for Keshi to have experimented with players in a game against the world champions or even Uruguay. He could have done that conveniently in the first outing with the less fancied Tahiti while reserving his best players for the big games,” he said.

“Let us recall also that Spain’s coach had benched some of his best players in the 1-0 whitewash of Tahiti because he wanted his best players available to achieve a favorable result against Nigeria, avoid a repeat of France’98 fiasco and go home a happy man and he got it.”

It surprised me that Keshi and the NFF, as a body, completely forgot the history side to any game against Spain in a high brow competition like this one in Brazil,Gen. Adebiyi said