megapro wrote:
I do not think his argument is just based on the FA cup run of 1978.
What is apparent is that as at the nations cup 1980, Insurance were by far the best team in the country. They had won the national league in 1979 where they needed a point against Water coporation in the final league match in Ibadan of all places. (Ogboe had been shot in that city.)
One would have expected the champion bonus teams like leventis bennefited when they won thier titles regarding invitations and caps.
But it seems no one was ready to confront the 2 established blocks of nigerian soccer then.
gloria capped guys like Edoseghe, Ogu and Egharevba but for whatever reasons, he never took them to tournaments.
Who will you drop for Edosoghe, Ogu, and Egharevba, in that Eagles squad. That is the point. Will you drop Big Sege for Ogu, mind you in my books Ogu was also a fantastic player, but like i said somewhere, some players came at the wrong time. Will you drop Adokiye or Owoblow for Egharevba(sic) or who in the defence will you drop for Amos Edoseghe. Remeber we had the following playing in the defence then, Adiele, who dethroned Ekeji from the right back, Okey Isima on the left, where Owoblow often features as well before he was moved upfront., CCC, Tunde Bamidele, Johny Orlando(who ironically is a Ghanian), Kadiri Ikhana , who was from the glorious Insurance team, i believe Adiele and Ikhana were from that team, that puts to rest the conspiracy theory.
Even Kadiri had to play in the midfield, such was the abundance of talents back then . Ofcourse there were players like Franklin Howard a much better player than Keshi back then (a victim of knee injury) all in the waiting. It was Howard's bad knee that made Keshi leap frog him in the pecking order. Amos stood no chance, it was as simple as that. Then from nowhere Eboigbe joined the CD queue, a player Keshi preferred over Amos.
Wo there were a thousand players who could have played back then. There was a very good CD from ACB back then Frank Onwuachi( or so), Idowu Otubusin(slow poison) from Shooting, the queue was as long as the queue to enter the national stadium on match day back then, they waited for almost 10 years just to take over from CCC, it never happened, take a trip back to those years, you will see why CCC reigned supreme, he was awesome, not only as a player , but as a leader of men.
If i remember Ogboe was called to camp , the Ogboe of Insurance was never the same in the national team, remeber this was the time Usiyen left us in the lurch in 1977, we were looking for a center forward, a search that took almost 8 years before Yekini surfaced. How many guys did we try as center forward, mmm let me count, Ifeanyi Onyedika, Kelechi 'Bulldozer' Emeteole,Martins Eyo, Ogboe(whose handicap was being a one legged left footed player), Muda Lawal, Emma Osigwe, we even tried to bring in John Fashanu, and also this guy from Portugal something Obiora who used to play for Rangers before going abroad, in 1982 out of desperation we even had to bring back an out of shape Usiyen just because that position was begging to be filled, what was keeping Ogboe out, it was his for the asking. It was only in 1984 that a young strappling gangling striker unearthed by IICC from UNTL FC kaduna by name Yekini, tried out for that position and the nation for a minute felt well at least we have someone who looks the part.
Damn, never heard of any of these players before. Ok, i confess, didnt live in nigeria that long.... But if all these guyz are as good as you guyz are saying, i would have loved to see them in action!
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but i will need a new knee, some hip replacement and a barber to give me the kind of cut that would make me look much younger than Uncle Stanley Okoro.
