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Former Gombe FA Boss Alhaji Gara Gombe has come out to state that unless we apologize to former Super Eagles goalkeeper and Captain Vincent Enyeama, Nigeria’s men national team the Super Eagles will continue to be a problem and setback as Nigeria failed to give the former number one choice goalkeeper the adequate respect expected which led to his premature resignation from international duties.
Gombe stated this during a chat on the Nigeria Sports Centre platform yesterday, following the poor reflex actions of Super Eagles goalkeeper Francis Uzoho, which led to the team conceding a cheap goal during an international friendly between Nigeria and Mozambique after just six minutes of play.
The match which eventually ended 3-2 in favour of Nigeria despite Mozambique been reduced to 10-man through a red card has called for questioning on the goalkeeping department and the former Gombe FA boss gave a swift response during a chat.
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“The Amaju Pinnick led NFA Has caused so much harm to our Football” Gombe started. “Enyeama is one of our precious assets in football History. Playing from the rear as goal keeper. He is the most capped Goal keeper in our history and the second most capped after Ahmed Musa. His Qualities, reflexes, Dives, control and leading from the Rear can only be compared to the likes of Dino Zoff,Oliver Khan,Peter Schmeichel, Edwin Van Der Sar,Eker Casilas,.
There is no exaggeration to this as Lionel Messi once described Vincent Enyeama as one of the Best Goal keepers he played against”.
“Vincent no doubt gave a good account of himself just like his predecessors did for Nigeria”. “Emmanuel Okala, Best Ogedengbe, Peter Rufai, Alloy Agu, Ike Shorunmu, Daniel Abdulahi, Wifred Agbonavbare among others have all wiped our tears at some point in time but by the time Enyeama took over his consistency became so unprecedented that fans of the Super Eagles can always go to sleep with their two eyes closed as far as the Goal Keeping department was concerned” Gombe added.
“Our Trouble started in Kaduna when Amaju-led NFF decided that the Eagles should play in Kaduna. As at then there was serious insecurity in Kaduna and as Captain of the team doing his job Vincent questioned the decision to play in Kaduna which was widely reported in the Media led by the Vanguard Newspaper”.
“Amaju was intolerant to the position of Vincent and he directed that VICENT Be Queried.The Query was not answered by Vincent until after the expiry of the ultimatum. Some of the players stood by their Captain while others did not as usual and this was expected.
“Suddenly Vincent lost his Mother just when the Euphoria of the query was on and it took forever for the NFA to issue a condolence statement until after the Press call out Amaju and the NFF”.
“Vincent fixed the Burial date of this mother and the next thing we heard was the NFF Opening camp in Europe just about two days to the burial date of Vincent Enyeama. They also gave dead line for reporting on the camp same date Vincent was burying his Mother”.
“As Chief Mourner Vincent Buried his mother and because of his love for his country he jetted out to Europe same day to join the team”. “Unfortunately, as he was burying his mother in Nigeria a COUP was organized against him in Europe camp of the Eagles where he was removed as captain of the Super Eagles and Mikel Obi and Ahmed Musa were asked to carry on” Gombe further added.
“What a bad way to treat the captain of the national team and the most capped goalkeeper in Nigeria history”. “There were allegations that the police was used to chase him out of the Hotel Camp of the EAGLES”.
“Sadly, Vincent Enyeama eventually announced his retirement from International Football even though there were rumours of his return to Super Eagles some years back although it never happened”.
“Nemesis is catching up with us since then and our goalkeeping department has not known any peace” Gombe concluded.
Recall that Vincent Enyeama who rose to become Super Eagles number one choice goalkeeper became popular while he was the first choice goalkeeper of Enyimba of Aba between 2001 to 2004 and helped the People’s Elephant win the CAF Champions League back-to-back in 2003 and 2004
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