Stephen Keshi

Lagos schoolboy, national captain

Stephen Okechukwu Keshi was born on 23 January 1962 in Azare, Bauchi State; his family comes from Illah in Delta State. He went to St Finbarr’s College, Akoka, in Lagos, played for the Flying Eagles, and joined ACB Lagos and then New Nigeria Bank, winning the West African club championship in 1983 and 1984.

A ban for reporting late to the national team camp in the mid-1980s pushed him abroad, first to Côte d’Ivoire and then to Belgium, opening a path that many Nigerian players later followed.

Playing career

Captain of 1994

Keshi captained Nigeria for more than a decade and lifted the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunis, then led the squad at the country’s first World Cup in the USA.

Coach of 2013

As a coach he took Togo to their only World Cup (2006), then led Nigeria to the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations title, beating Burkina Faso 1-0 in Johannesburg with a squad full of home-based players. He also took Nigeria to the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup. He is one of only two men, with Egypt’s Mahmoud El-Gohary, to win AFCON as a player and as a coach.

Legacy

Keshi died of a heart attack in Benin City in June 2016, six months after his wife Kate, and was buried in Illah. The Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba carries his name.