Former Super Eagles’ goalkeeper trainer, Ike Shorunmu, has called on the national team manager, Gernot Rohr, to still keep the number one goal-keeping role of his team open, as there are many good goaltenders in the domestic league. Shorunmu said if more keepers had been discovered and groomed over the years, there wouldn’t have been a problem for the Super Eagles’ handler during preparations for the Russia 2018 World Cup. He noted that apart from Francis Uzoho, Daniel Apeyi, Vincent Enyeama and Carl Ikeme, the country does not have enough credible keepers plying their trade in Europe big clubs.
“The Super Eagles coaches need to keep searching for more keepers to have enough players to pick from in the future. We cannot continue with this goal-keeping problem in a country like Nigeria. Apart from Uzoho, Apeyi, Enyeama and Ikeme, the country does not have goalkeepers that could be reckoned with in Europe. We have to look inwards to produce better keepers. Getting standard keepers needs patience and encouragement. Over-relying on a particular keeper is not healthy, efforts should be made to get more keepers in the future. The AFCON qualifiers is by September-October, so, this means the coaches have to stick on the existing keepers and plan ahead to discover more,” he said.
He also added that the preference for foreign-based players and Nigeria players born abroad to take part at the World Cup has shown that the domestic league players still need to do more, stressing that Nigeria league needs to be improved to produce quality players that are hungry to make a mark in their football career.