“Yes, I Hate Okocha,” Sunday Oliseh Admits

Super Eagles coach, Sunday Oliseh got fed up of continued insinuations of enmity between he and former Super Eagles captain Jay Jay Okocha.

When asked by a reporter if it true that the two national football legends do not see eye to eye, Oliseh sarcastically replied, “Yes, I hate Jay-Jay”.

Allowing a brief moment of awkward silence, he delivered the punchline and said, “I hate Okocha because anytime we play tennis, he beats me. We played at the weekend at Sheraton Hotel and he defeated me’’.
“We’re the best of friends and we played Tennis at the weekend”, he emphasised.

Sunday Oliseh and Austin Okocha

Oliseh and Okocha rivalry rumours go as far back as at least 2002 when Jay Jay Okocha was made captain of the Eagles for the Korea-Japan World Cup. Nigeria was placed in a group that has England, Argentina and Sweden in that World Cup, and the Eagles came last in that group.

Speaking on the Eagles, Oliseh said that he was going to make the Eagles to play team football combined with individual talents. ‘’If you remember our victories in 1994 and 1996, it was based on individual talents.

But we do not have such individual talents again. What we need to do is to play collectively. That is what obtains in Germany and Spain. It’s a lot of hard work. We’re here to do our best’’, he added.