Don’t Quit Eagles Now, Okocha Tells Yobo

Former Super Eagles skipper, Austin Jay-Jay Okocha, has made a passionate appeal to the out-of-favour Eagles defender, Joseph Yobo, not to quit the senior national team now because of the rift between him and coach Stephen Keshi.

Fielding questions from the media in Abuja after the commissioning of the new secretariat of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in Abuja yesterday, the former Bolton Wanderers mercurial midfielder quipped that if he had the opportunity he would not have retired as early as he did from the national team, urging Yobo to continue to hang on.

Asked his take on the way Keshi has handled the return of Yobo, Okocha said: “Everybody has different approach to handling issues. I will be wrong to criticise the way Keshi is handling the issue. The only thing is we must try to be diplomatic about it and make friends instead of enemies.”

“In football, issues must always come up positively or negatively but the way we handle it makes the difference. I think the issue between Keshi and Yobo was over hyped because it would have been settled behind the scene. We should not forget that at the end of the day, we all have one target of representing our country and giving our best to our nation.”

“I think Yobo should not retire because he will not have a second chance again to play for the national team if he quits. In fact, sometimes some of us think we retired even too early.

So, once you have the opportunity to stick to the national team, my advice is for the person to remain no matter the magnitude of the problem,” he added.