The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) announced a new goalkepper’s trainer for the senior national team of Nigeria as part of the reorganization of the technical crew of the team.
Ike Shorunmu was returned back to the role he left for Alloy Agu who has been heavily criticised for the crisis in the Super Eagles goalkepper’s department following two costly errors by the duo of Maduka Okoye and Francis Uzoho.
Okoye was roundly blamed for the lone goal which helped Tunisia to dump Nigeria out of the Africa Cup of Nations at the round of 16. Uzoho was in goal for the World Cup playoff but after his man of the match performance in the first leg, he let slip a speculative effort from Thomas Partey which proved to be decisive as Ghana got a 1-1 draw in Abuja to seal a spot at the World Cup.
It led to calls for a change in the area of who trains the goalkeppers and Shorunmu was returned back to his old role. He already confesses his love for Okoye and defended him after his error at the Africa Cup of Nations.
The 54-year-old believes Youssef Msakni’s shot from outside the penalty area deviated in front of Okoye, whose hand could not completely prevent the goal. He said back then that the Watford bound goalkepper is to him the best option for Nigeria owing to his constant game time at Sparta Rotterdam, where he is on loan from Watford.
“A lot of people said Okoye caused the goal but I don’t want to believe that because if you look at the shot very well from that distance, the speed was very high and before the ball got to Okoye, it swerved’, he said in an interview.
“And that tells you the kind of game plan the Tunisians had for us. They believed they can’t enter our penalty area which forced them to play their shots from distance.
“After the goal, they tried the same action again with another shot from outside the 18-yard box but thank God, Okoye reacted quickly and pushed it for a corner-kick. He is very young and having a constant run of games so you can say he deserve to be first choice”, he concluded.