In this exclusive interview, former Nigeria goalkeeper, Joseph Dosu, fields questions from Complete Sports reporter, SULAIMAN ALAO, about Super Eagles’ two international friendly games in Austria – the 1-0 defeat to the Desert Foxes of Algeria last Friday, and the upcoming clash with the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia on Tuesday.
The former Julius Berger (defunct) and Reggiana goalkeeper, and Atlanta’ 96 Olympics gold medalist with Nigeria’s Olympic Eagles, reiterates that he is more interested the positives from friendly matches that are more important than the results.
Excerpts…
Complete sports: The Super Eagles lost by a lone goal to Algeria in the first of their two October friendlies at the weekend. What is your take on the game?
Joseph Dosu: Firstly, it’s good to have the Super Eagles assemble again after about a year now. I think the last time we saw the national team in action was incidentally during a set of friendlies around this time last year.
I think the Eagles had a good game, depending on what you were watching out for. For me, it was just a friendly game, and the purpose was to identify some new players towards build some continuity in the squad.
Some new players were invited and some did well and some didn’t – it’s all about plus and minus. For now, we should not castigate any of those players because they have all been doing well for their clubs week in, week out.
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So if they couldn’t make it in one game, that should not make them bad players because they still have another game to play. We should wait until after the second game before passing any judgement on the players.
Looking at that game, is it right to expect the Eagles to win knowing that the team was without some regular players. Does it mean expecting too much?
Dosu: Well, it depends on how the fans see it. Maybe they were expecting the Eagles to win and there is nothing really wrong in that.
But we also have too look at the circumstances surrounding the game as we didn’t have quite a number of our regular players for the game. So I believe that was why the coaches invited many new players to see who among them that can fit into the main team.
Like I said earlier, it’s about plus and minus for the new players invited. It’s a situation whereby you do well, you stay and you don’t do well, you ‘re out of the team. But there is still another game to go to further assess the players and the team generally.
It will not be right to judge a player just by one game, they should get another opportunity. The result is not really important
The Eagles conceded an early goal which was the only goal of the game. Would you say it is a weakness on the part of the team?
Dosu: I don’t think the goal was planned by the Algerians. It was a corner kick with the ball lobbed into the air, then it fell on the ground and everybody was like looking for the ball and it was the player that saw it first that just kicked it into the net.
You shouldn’t really blame anybody because it was a goalmouth scramble and such things happen all the time, not only to the Eagles, but to any team. Like I said, it was just a friendly match and either we conceded an early or concede late is not important.
What is important is who did well in the game – who can we keep and who can we say ‘please, thank you for coming.’
Let’s just look at the positive side – that even though we lost the game 1-0, there are one or two players that can be recalled into the team in the future.
Talking about the players that did well or not. Can you tell us the players that impressed you in the game?
Dosu: If I start to mention names, I don’t know if it is the same names the coaches will pick. But I know that few of the players did well and some don’t. It’s the coaches’ duty to identify who they want to bring into the main team later on.
And like I said earlier, you can’t judge the players by just one game. There is another game to be played and the players might get another chance to show what they can do.
Goalkeepers (L-R): Tobias Lawal, Matthew Yakubu, Aloy Agụ (goalkeeper coach), Maduka Okoye and Dele Alampasu
As a former Super Eagles goalkeeper, are you impressed with the goalkeeping department that feature new hands, especially with none of the regular goalkeepers around for the friendlies?
Dosu: Yes. I’m quite happy that we have lots of goalkeepers we can now call upon to play for the Eagles at any time. There is a competition in that department which is really good for the team.
The young keeper, Okoye Maduka, who kept the goal did well on some few occasions during the game. You can’t blame him for the goal conceded. He was able to command the defence, he also did well cutting off the through passes across his goal, I think he did well generally and his grip was okay. He was called into action about two or three times and he did well on those occasions.
So Okoye for me, is okay and the guy is still very young at 23. And we still have the other keepers in camp – Dele Alampasu whom we know very well when he started out with the U-17 national team and the new one. I hope we can see them in action in the next game to be able to assess them too.
I think for the goalkeeping department, Nigerians can be happy that we now have good competition which is a very good development.
Going into the next game against Tunisia on Tuesday, what are you expecting and what area do you think the team need to improve upon?
Dosu: I’m not really expecting anything much, like I said earlier, these are friendly games and even if we go ahead to beat Tunisia 10-zero, it doesn’t matter much.
The important thing is to try and identify some of the new players that can fit into the main team. For me, that should be the real essence of these friendly games especially as we don’t have the full compliment of the team on ground.
The friendlies provide a good opportunity for the coach to fortify his team with other players so that the Eagles have a very strong starting eleven as well as a very strong bench. That I want to think is what the coach is also looking out for.
There is an influx of new set of players now tagged the ‘foreign born’ in the Eagles. Will you say it is a good development?
Dosu: Yes, it is a good development at the moment because our domestic league is not on. It was sad that the coaches can’t even invite one or two players from the local league because the league is not on.
So the only option left for the coaches was to look for the players who are out there in Europe that can be invited into the national team. And if the players that were born in Europe are available, why not – they are Nigerians too.
However, they should be invited if they really want to play for us, not that we should be begging them to play for the country. If our league was on, I believe some home-based players would have been in the team.
So I think it is a good opportunity for the country to explore the talents born abroad for the benefit of the team. After the friendlies, the coaches should be in a good position to know those they would retain in the team as we look forward to the Nations Cup qualifiers and others.
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COMMENTS
Good input by dose, truthfully it is not the result that matters but who did well amongst players!!! Rohr wants to fortify the team actually
That is your own passpective by saying it’s just friendlies and it does not that matter.
As a football nation, it does. Messi, Mbape, C.Ronald, Pogba and so on were playing their hearts as if they were playing at the world world last week in their friendly matches so, for you as a former goalie talking like this shows that Super Eagles still have long way to go.
What kind of excuse is that? It’s just a friendly match. Did you watch Portugal match? Other top countries in football have played too and we saw they played.
So, Mr. Dosu, it beyond that level. We don’t celebrate failure. God bless Nigeria!!!
You can only spot out shallow minds through their shallow and one direction comment….
Immagine the garbage somebody that calls himself “progressive” is spewing….
Omo9ja why are you always negative. This is just a friendly. It’s to recognized new players. Simple. Must you always be negative? This same Rohr defeated argentina in a friendly. Drew brazil in a friendly. Some of the players were there. Now because they played badly them they are bad. What about you? Are you always on the 100% lane evertime?
That is your own passpective by saying it’s just friendlies and it does not that matter.
As a football nation, it does. Messi, Mbape, C.Ronald, Pogba and so on were playing their hearts as if they were playing at the world world last week in their friendly matches so, for you as a former goalie talking like this shows that Super Eagles still have long way to go.
What kind of excuse is that? It’s just a friendly match. Did you watch Portugal match? Other top countries in football have played too and we saw what they played.
So, Mr. Dosu, it beyond that level. We don’t celebrate failure. God bless Nigeria!!!
@ Omo9ja. Failure is mapped unto objectives not actualised. Kindly let us know what your objectives could have been if you were the coach, knowing fully well its a friendly.
We don’t tolerate your own/ version of failure, reason Nigeria is a failed state today while people/countries making progress, set objectives for themselves and go on step by step to actualise them sacrificing temporary set backs, wherein you wanna celebrate temporary success at that point. Not surprised though, it’s a NIGERIAN THING HOLDING US BACK FROM EVER MAKING PROGRESS.
You must know that where there is no sacrifice, there is never a good harvest. Winning friendlies is amongst the least of objectives, while trying out new players/formation supercedes. I m sure you remember how Togo destroyed our 1996 Olympic football team 3-0 in Lagos, with all our star players, JJ, Oliseh, cellestine, Kanu, Taribo etc present. What sense would it have made to you if you had said then that we don’t tolerate failure. If you have been following the history of nigeria football, you would have realised that when our SE team starts winning every friendly game, then you’d better start to get worried for the tournament proper. It’s high time you turned a new leaf brother man. Rohr and crew are doing a fantastic job and I’m only waiting to serve many of you doubters delicious meal,after the food might have finished cooking cos I smell it coming. I see a team that will go on to destroy many team both within and without Africa including ENGLAND where I will wanna put a bet with my man @ Drey, right here on this forum. Let’s be patient till the end.
I’m wondering when this your harvest time will come so we can reap success.
It’s been four years now the gaffer is in charge of our national team yet we keep seeing the same mistakes all the time.
Friendly games doesn’t mean we should lose woefully without any threat to the opponents like we did on Friday instead friendly games are to ascertain the team’s progress and trying out new players which the coach had taken out time to scout and see if such players can fit in to the system of his team (national team is not a rehabilitation center, we don’t do try your luck here because there’s no much time to integrate such players as clubs do)
Onuachu was invited before why again?
Trying out new players doesn’t mean we should invite only defensive midfielders thereby rendering the midfield crippled.
It’s a waste of space.
You can only spot out shallow minds through their shallow and one direction comment….
Immagine the garbage somebody that calls himself “progressive” is spewing….
Omo9ja, please check before you type. Portugal vs France was not a friendly. It was the UEFA Nations League game so that is a very wrong comparison. Also Messi played in their World Cup qualifiers, the South American version started this month. Can you see now that you are not making sense. Dosu on the other hand is 100% spot on.
CSN pls u pple should know the way u title your news.
I almost jump on this man (Dosu) Immediately i saw that headline but after going through it i discover the man is just a right thinker, a hero we need in this country, a man that prefers success & progress, a man that want to carry others along etc.
Left for me & some sane, literate & right thinking minds like @DREY, @CHAIRMANFEMI, @OAKFIELD etc THis forum would’ve been a place where we analyse football in a mature way.
Where errors are pointed out without nepotism, hatred, envy, ethnicity, racism etc.
They would have been peace & harmony ince we all speak one language “progress, success & positive difference”
It’s just some uncultured fellow; as we all know not every child is properly trained so when they coe to the public they tend to display some wild & abnormal behaviors like hatred, segregation, racism et all.
They’re the ones that pollut this forum with segregation & nepotism.
We know; light always dislodge darkness.
They’ll disappear one day either by fire or by force