Stephen Keshi, Nigeria
coach "Nigerians have waited a long
time for this moment; Nigerians
have missed out a great deal in
the last few years, my goal was
to put smile on Nigerians. We
knew that Mali will give us a tough time, but we knew that
they are a little bit slow and we
took advantage of that. "There were lots of problems
back home when I left out some
of the senior players in the team
but I had my own reasons, I
know that some people did not
understand. We wanted team players – the mentality – the
players who can work for the
team. There is a lot of talent
and potential in this team – we
still have a long way." Vincent Enyeama, Nigeria
goalkeeper, "We are happy, we want to
thank God for this victory.
Everyone in our team is a
captain, we motivate ourselves,
we all know what we have to do
on the field. I'm not the captain of Nigeria – I'm just standing in
for the captain (Joseph Yobo)." Patrice Carteron, Mali
coach "We are proud of the fact that
we have been able to play well.
I'm proud of my team even
though we did not go to the
final. We have to remain positive. "We lost against a good team
that was full of confidence
tonight. We played a team that
just beat Cote d'Ivoire and you
could see their confidence on the
night. What happened to us tonight is very difficult. Mali has
been able to reach the semi-
finals before and we also
achieved that – which is good." Seydou Keita, Mali captain "It is difficult to have a fair
analysis in this situation. They
have a good team, they have
won and they were a better
team than us. Right now I'm still
very emotional. "Today we failed to win; it is not
about individuals but about a
collective effort. We were very
happy against South Africa
because we played as a team.
Tonight we didn't play well and we must all share responsibility."