Stephen Keshi makes history

Описание: When the Super Eagles of Nigeria lifted their third AFCON title last night beating Burkina Faso 1-0 in the final at National stadium, coach Stephen "The Boss" Keshi broke another record. He became the second person to win it both as a player and coach after Egyptian Mahmoud El Gohary who achieved that feat in 1959 and 1998 (beat Bafana and Jomo Sono 2-0 in Burkina Faso in the final). Keshi who captained Nigeria to their second AFCON title in Tunisia in 1994 says it's difficult to compare which title is the most important to him between these two....

Keshi has had some serious run-ins with the top football administrators back home in Nigeria who doubted his long term vision for this team. There was even talk of him being history had they lost to Cote D'Ivoire in the last eight. He's pleading with African football administrators to treat local coaches with care and they will be rewarded...

Nigeria who had missed last year's AFCON tournament in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon came to this year's tournament with 17 players coming to compete for the first time. The team was never given a chance even by the pundits but Keshi a former Togo and Mali national team coach has always believed in his boys...

Even the Belgian born Burkina Faso coach Paul Put whose team had earlier played a 1-all draw against Nigeria in the group stages, was a man enough to admit that the best team had won the 29th edition of this tournament....

It wasn't surprising to see the Team of the Tournament being dominated by five Nigerians and one of them players is Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel who says their mission of restoring the Super Eagles as a leading team in the continent is on the right path...

Keshi also deserves some praise for his belief in the local talent that saw him selecting six players from the Nigerian Premier League to take part in this tournament. Two of them were regulars Sunshine Stars central defender Godfrey Oboabona and the man of the moment Enugu Ranger's Sunday Mba who scored the only goal in the final. Mba had earlier scored the decisive goal during the 2-1 win over the Elephants in the last eight and Mikel has got nothing but praise for him...

The future looks very bright for the Burkinabe national team but maybe not in the current 2014 World Cup qualifiers where they are currently sitting at the bottom of Group E. But Put says if the relevant stakeholders can map the way forward, there's still be a lot in store for this team...

This was Burkina Faso's first ever AFCON final.

Captions: Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi
Burkina Faso coach Paul Put
John Obi Mikel

Image source: Gallo Images

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