{"id":21766,"date":"2013-02-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/02\/eagles-not-yet-there-says-keshi\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T00:00:00","slug":"eagles-not-yet-there-says-keshi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/02\/07\/eagles-not-yet-there-says-keshi\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles not yet there, says Keshi"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>SUPER Eagles\u2019 Coach, Stephen Keshi says his team is still developing even after it qualified for the final of the Africa Cup of Nations with massive victory against Mali in Durban.<\/p>\n<p>Keshi reiterated that confidence in the crop of players that he brought to the Africa Cup of Nations has ensured the team\u2019s continued progress as it qualified for the final, a game against Burkina Faso on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The Super Eagles defeated Mali 4-1 in Durban with goals from Elderson Echiejile, Ideye Brown, Emmanuel Emenike and Ahmed Musa. Mady Diarra scored Mali\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n<p>Going into the tournament, Keshi had been criticised for dropping big names like Peter Odemwingie, Obafemi Martins and Taye Taiwo, among a few others.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost Nigerians didn\u2019t understand, it\u2019s not only skilful players that can do the job for you in a tournament. You want the mentality to be strong, you want team players, people that can really work for the team,\u201d Keshi said after the team\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeyond that, I know there\u2019s a lot of potential for this team but it\u2019s going to take a while to build and for them to understand the style I want them to play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keshi\u2019s squad has slowly progressed in the tournament where it drew its first couple of matches against Burkina Faso and Zambia before defeating Ethiopia, favourites Cote d\u2019Ivoire and now Mali.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we started it was a little bit difficult because we were just coming together for the first time. I knew coming into the tournament, the first two, three games might be difficult because of fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut there\u2019s a lot of concentration and high level of discipline in camp and the atmosphere has been wonderful, everything has fallen into place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keshi said he has achieved his aim of trying to put smiles on the faces of his countrymen.<\/p>\n<p>While they go into the final on Sunday against either Burkina Faso, there is already comparison of this team with the Nigeria squad of 1994, which he captained to their last AFCON victory and maiden World Cup appearance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat squad took five years, this one is only five weeks old. We\u2019re just growing, don\u2019t think we\u2019re there and we can\u2019t lose a game. Sometimes things go up and down, we are still adding and subtracting. If I see any player that is very good and provides something tangible for my team, I will bring him in,\u201d Keshi said.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>\u2022 Culled from goal.com<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> SUPER Eagles\u2019 Coach, Stephen Keshi says his team is still developing even after it qualified for the final of the Africa Cup of Nations with massive victory against Mali in Durban. Keshi reiterated that confidence in the crop of players that he brought to the Africa Cup of Nations has ensured the team\u2019s continued progress as it qualified for the final, a game against Burkina Faso on Sunday. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}