With his top form in Spain, he had been expected to make the squad to the World Cup but was again overlooked by Keshi who took along strikers in poorer form. The issue of Uche's recall came up last month when Keshi announced his team to take on Congo and South Africa without the Yellow Submarine man, who took to Twitter to deny asking to be begged to play for his country. Today, Keshi opened up on the issue extensively.
“I don’t want to talk about the issue of Ikechukwu Uche again and I don’t want anybody to ask me about him again, Before [last month’s] game against Congo, I did the list. I didn’t even want to do the list because I never knew I would come back to handle the team. I told them I am not the coach that [the NFF] should do the list but they said no, I should please do the list.
“I did the list and Ikechukwu Uche’s name was on the 25 man list I did. He (Ike Uche) didn’t even know about it because I did not tell him. Uche then called me four days later and said “Coach how are you? and I said boy it is good to hear your voice.” We just spoke like brothers and that was it.
“I then told [Team] Secretary, Dayo Enebi, to ask if the players have South African visas and the ones that don’t have he should take their passports ahead of time to process their visas. “He then asked Ikechukwu Uche and Uche said why is he asking him and why was he asking for his international passport.
“I hate to speak without Uche not being here or if you want to call him put him on speaker to know who is telling lies or not. And please nobody should ask me about Uche again. “Uche said he needs somebody to talk to him about something they said about him as being a bad kid and they said he did something wrong.
“Then I said okay [Dayo Enebi] take his name out. I am not going to beg Uche and I am not going to tell Daniel [Amokachi] to beg Uche, for what? “We have played for this country for over 20 years and nobody ever begged us to play for the country. We are the ones always begging to play.
"So please let this be the end today. Don’t ask me about Uche. We have Obafemi Martins and others (doing well) and nobody is making fuss about not being invited. “What is wrong with him? Why do people want to tear this team apart,” Keshi queried.
The Super Eagles are without the injured pair of Victor Moses and Michael Babatunde as they head to Khartoum. Nigeria face a must-win pair of matches against Sudan if they hope to qualify to defend their African title in Morocco next year.
The fate of Keshi as coach of the national team depends on the qualifiers with the newly elected NFF executive board expected to deliberate on offering him a permanent contract soon.
Source: AITonline
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