Former Super Eagles goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama says he is in the process of grooming a new generation of goalkeepers to solve the team’s woes in that position.
“I have plans with the governor of my state (Akwa Ibom) to raise an academy for the people. I have a few goalkeepers I am training already. I want to give back, to raise clean sheet machines,”Enyeama told ESPN.
The inspiration for the project comes from the progress he made in his career when he spent about three weeks training at Bolton Wanderers in the early 2000s.
Enyeama said: “I was a very good goalkeeper before I went to train with Bolton, but the two or three weeks I spent at Bolton gave me a different style of goalkeeping and opened my eyes.
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“The goalkeeper trainer then, Fred Barber, told me things I needed to change. When I started doing the things he told me, I unlocked different levels to my game.
“I started using those methods and my game really changed. It is those secrets that I want to impart to my students.”
Enyeama made 101 appearances for the Super Eagles and was part of the squad that won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.
3 Comments
I believe this is a better way to pass on experience, tactical impetus and coaching knowledge to other players and football as a whole. I wish players like Oliseh, Okocha & Finidi can follow suit. This will help to raise classic defensive midfielders, playmakers & wingers for the local leagues and the younger youth teams for the Nigerian football team who have performed woefully in the recent tournaments they have been involved in.
My hope is that initiatives like this receive funding and sponsorship in the immediate future. It would great for a player like Papillo Nwankwo Kanu to take on such initiative as well to produce another skillful player of his caliber for the u/17 team and the Olympic team to replicate his impact in the 1996 Olympic Men’s football games.
God bless Enyeama as this reflects his passion for the game and his charitably heart to give back to Nigerian football.
Kbaba,
So fun won
True talk.
This would be a very great initiative from Vincent Enyeama.
Only that I would have loved him to still man the sticks into his 40s