Two of Nigeria’s golden generation players, Ike Shorunmu and Daniel Amokachi are not on the same page on who’s the country’s greatest player of all time.
Two days ago, legendary Nigerian striker, Amokachi, in an interview with Brila FM, while picking his best Nigerian player of all-time, waved off the feats of both Austin Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu in naming former Chelsea midfielder, John Obi Mikel as the greatest. But his former teammate and former Super Eagles goalkeeper, Shorunmu disagreed with ‘The Bull’s assertion, saying Amokachi goofed by singling out Mikel.
Shoronmu, regarded as one of the best Nigerian goalkeepers ever told www.brila.net that it’s difficult to award such title to Mikel. He claimed there are several players, who deserved the honour than the former Chelsea man.
“As a footballer, your laurels count and that will surely count for Mikel because nobody has won that much in Nigerian football,” Amokachi said.
But Shorunmu punctured him, saying: “He’s our ambassador, you have to give it to him. Mikel is a great player, but there are a lot of great players ahead of him, who have played for Nigeria as well.”
The former Besiktas of Turkey goalkeeper said: “If you look at the names like Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Jay-Jay Okocha, Emmanuel Okala, Peter Rufai, and Segun Odegbami, then you can’t just pick someone around the corner and say he’s the greatest player,” he argued.
“It’s not like we hate any player, but there are a lot of people ahead of him and in terms of commitment to the national team,” he added.
“The way Amokachi think of might be different from that of others, if he said Mikel is one of the greatest, I don’t have any problem with that, but to say he’s greatest? There is a lot of question marks on that,” he concluded.