A former captain of Nigeria’s national team, Super Eagles, Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha has urged players in the current squad to show better levels of desire towards donning the nation’s jersey.
Sports247 reports that the former Eintracht Frankfurt of Germany, Fernebahce of Turkey, PSG of France and Bolton Wanderers of England midfielder pointed out that making sacrifices for the team is the biggest show of desire that could be expressed by any player.
Read Also: Nigerian 16 Year Old Striker Okere Emmanuel Cries Out His Dreams Of Becoming A Great Footballer
He took his mind back to a development that played out before the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA, as the players had to pay for accommodation at their hotel camp when the then Nigeria Football Association (NFA) failed to settle the bills.
‘The Emperor,’ who was also tagged ‘so good they named him twice,’ recalled: “It is special to me because of what we went through. People only see the end product, but they don’t really see the process. The process was tough.
“We were in camp in America, and we woke up one day to see that our team’s bus was gone because the FA hadn’t paid for it.
“(Apart from that), for like a week, the hotel was giving us the same menu. Rice and sauce for a week – for lunch and dinner – the same meal.
“So, we went to them and asked, ‘How come you’re not changing our menu?’ They said we should be glad that we were still there because our FA had not paid for the accommodation.
“A few of us had to bring out our credit cards and pay for accommodation so that we could continue staying in the camp. We then went to rent mini vans for our movement.”
Okocha hinted that the current Eagles would get better redults of the players put more effoet into allbtheir matches and he stressed lessons learnt from the situation thry fsced before going on to win the 1996 Olympic Games’ soccrr evr.
He reiterated that being abe to withstand the torrid situation in camp, and that they even paid the bills with their own money, was an example for the current array of players to emulate, as he recalled: “This showed the desire that we had.”
