{"id":3874,"date":"2015-01-05T08:11:39","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T08:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3874"},"modified":"2015-01-05T08:11:39","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T08:11:39","slug":"keshi-never-liked-me-martins-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3874","title":{"rendered":"Keshi never liked me, Martins reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3875\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3875\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Obafemi-Martins.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3875\" alt=\"Obafemi Martins\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Obafemi-Martins.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3875\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Obafemi Martins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Seattle Sounders striker Obafemi Martins and Dynamo Kiev midfielder Lukman Haruna have expressed bewilderment at being frozen out of the Super Eagles by out-of-contract coach, Stephen Keshi, throughout last year.<\/p>\n<p>While Martins only made two appearances under Keshi despite being among the top scorers in the Major League Soccer with 17 goals last season, Haruna was completely forgotten by the Big Boss.<\/p>\n<p>Martins, who later called it quits with the national team in December, told journalists in Lagos on Saturday he no longer know anything about the team.<\/p>\n<p>The former Inter Milan striker featured in a friendly against Venezuela in Miami and in a World Cup qualifier against Kenya in Calabar in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t have any issue with [Keshi]; I respect him as a coach but I think he doesn\u2019t like me,\u201d the striker said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why I was left out of the team; it could only mean he never liked me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added, \u201cI can\u2019t say anything about the team, I\u2019ve been out of the squad for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Haruna also told journalists that he would have loved to play if he had been invited by Keshi. His last national assignment was at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa where he played under coach Lars Lagerback against Greece and Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>He has found it increasingly difficult to break into the starting 11 at Dynamo Kiev this season, but is optimistic he will get his chance soon enough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m always available for my country, I can never say no if invited,\u201d Haruna said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t explain why I was not called up, but that\u2019s in the past and it\u2019s unfortunate we didn\u2019t qualify for the Nations Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The former Monaco player said he would cherish playing under his former boss, Samson Siasia, who is building a new U-23 team for the All-Africa Games and the 2016 Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf he wants me to play for him, why not. I\u2019m available to help the team succeed if I\u2019m called up,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Source:http:\/\/www.punchng.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seattle Sounders striker Obafemi Martins and Dynamo Kiev midfielder Lukman Haruna have expressed bewilderment at being frozen out of the Super Eagles by out-of-contract coach, Stephen Keshi, throughout last year. While Martins only made two appearances under Keshi despite being among the top scorers in the Major League Soccer with 17 goals last season, Haruna [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Obafemi-Martins.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-10u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3876,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions\/3876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}