I am deeply saddened, troubled and profoundly hurt by the assassination
of my person as Vincent Enyeama has done over the past two days on
social about me insulting his mother, these allegations are unheard of. When I was appointed the chief coach of the Super Eagles of Nigeria, I
drove to Lille to see Vincent, took him to lunch and discussed how we
wanted to move forward with him as my captain. I shared my philosophy
with him and he made a statement I didn’t like, he said he was going to
retire in a year or two and I told him I wouldn’t hear of it as he was
the captain of the team because we were thinking of taking the team to
the 2017 AFCON and 2018 World Cup; but we can’t build a team with you as
captain if you are retiring in 2017. 2 weeks ago before the camp started he told us about his mother’s
burial, but I couldn’t go and there was an arrangement with the President
who assured me he’d be there on behalf of the NFF and team. But he
started talking about retirement so at that moment I felt we needed
someone else as captain; it had nothing to do with hurting anybody. I don’t know Vincent personally, I’ve only been named coach and in
fact we’ve seen only once. He’s served Nigeria very well and as Captain,
I was also captain and I know how difficult that job is.
We started camp on Monday, to my greatest surprise Mikel Obi and Ighalo
camp in on Sunday night. We had invited 4 goalkeepers and he told us he
had to bury his mother. So, Obviously he couldn’t report to camp early
until Tuesday, just about the time we were rounding up; he drove into
training ground.
Prior to his coming in, we had the Nigeria ambassador to Belgium come
in to talk with the team because our delegation had not been given
visas to come in, 6 players were stuck in Nigeria over the hitch; 2 of
them were goalies. And somebody had to act in the absence of the Captain
which Musa had been doing well prior to the Tanzania and Niger games.
And I remember, when the Ambassador wrapped up I told Musa; as the
captain, to introduce the team as a way to appreciate the support. But the boys did not train well that afternoon, the ball playing was
good but our objectiveness on the ball was not up to my liking so later
at dinner I called the team and told them I was not happy and demanded
more from them. Only for Vincent to stand up insisting on saying
somethings but I told him to see me about it later. He refused and as
side talks persisted I called him to order, he started raising his
voice, I told him we couldn’t have two coaches in the team and that he had to
retire to his room. His colleagues got up and escorted him out of the
hall. Two of his colleagues came in later to see me; the Captain Ahmed
Musa and Mikel Obi, pleaded on his behalf and we left it there. Only for
issues to start popping up on social media alleging we insulted him and
his late mother.
Most people are not aware of this but I’ll tell you now that when we
went to play in Tanzania I personally asked for the team to wear the
black band in honor of his mother and for us to observe a minute’s
silence , we asked and we went through the channel of Dayo Enebi, but
they said we should have made the demand earlier, does this sound like a
man who wants to humiliate his captain?
What happened after wards, was alarming. We had only two goalkeepers,
15 players and we were playing a friendly game so we had to call in
players who did not need visas to come into Belgium as quick as possible
to make up numbers. We now had to call in Alampasu because we had only 2
goalkeepers; we were already making a case with Alloy to get ready if
anything happened. We called Efe Ambrose and Madu in, working like we
were a fire brigade.
I did not even have time to reply social media chats because we had to work.
However on the match day, Vincent did not come to lunch, I was
confused because I thought we’d put all of the previous night’s issues
behind us. I called him and asked why he wasn’t in for lunch and he said
he was returning to his club. He said because I invited Alampasu he was
leaving. Alloy Agu is my witness, God is my witness.
No comments:
Post a Comment