Nigeria: Osaze Axed As Siasia Names Team List

Leadership (Abuja)

Jonathan Isaiah

20 May 2011

Abuja — Super Eagles coach, Samson Siasia yesterday at the Media Center Abuja, stunned Nigerians when he released the team list to face Argentina and Ethiopia without West Bromwich Albion striker, Osaze Odemwingie, considered to be Nigeria’s hottest player at the moment in Europe. He became the biggest casualty for reasons the coach gave bothered on indiscipline. Samson Siasia insisted that the player “is not bigger than Nigeria.”

Siasia has brought the big hammer down on Osaze after he walked out on the Eagles ahead of a friendly against Kenya in March. Osaze may have banged 15 goals in his debut season in the English Premier League, but Siasia said that he has to be disciplined for walking out on the team and his subsequent Twitter attack on the coach.

He said that Osaze is yet to apologise for his misconduct. “Yes, I excluded Osaze from the squad against Argentina as a result of his insubordination and lack of respect for the technical crew of the team which I happen to be the head. The other players in the team had threatened to stage a mass protest and back out in other matches if I failed to sanction Osaze for leaving the camp in Abuja without taking permission from me and travelling back to England to join his club shortly after Ethiopia’s Nations Cup qualifier and did not wait for the Kenya friendly. Some of them confessed to me that they are watching with keen interest to see if I will discipline him or not. So, I had no option than to do this to instill discipline in the team.”

“I do not want a situation where I or Nigeria would be totally disgraced by the players and thereby expose the country to ridicule. Let discipline be maintained. Osaze is not bigger than the team or the whole Nigeria.”

Siasia is well known for calling off the bluff of star players. He dropped Chelsea midfielder Mikel Obi from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Dream Team IV reached the final of the football event in China. The game against Argentina is billed for the Abuja National stadium on June 1 while the Nations Cup qualifier against Ethiopia comes up four days later.

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