Nigeria Content Online

The
home-based Super Eagles team will today begin their quest to retain the
West African Football Union (WAFU) title they won last year, when they
confront the Eagles of Mali in the first match of the annual regional
tournament.

The match, billed
for the MKO Abiola Stadium in Abeokuta is scheduled to begin by 2.00pm
local time and the Nigerian team will be hoping to do a double over the
Malians whose Under 20 team was recently defeated by Flying Eagles
en-route to been crowned Africa Champions in South Africa.

While many
Nigerians believe that the team led by Coach Samson Siasia should be
able to retain the trophy won by Daniel Amokachi and his lads last
year, the Beijing Olympic silver-winning coach was quick to say that
much should not be expected from his hurriedly-assembled team.

“These boys have
been on break for weeks now, without playing any football, because the
league is on break and we had only two days or less to get them ready
to play a football match” Siasia had told a sports website.

“That is not right. We should have been told on time, so we could have had more time to prepare these boys.

“I don’t know what
their conditioning is right now, and you can’t knock somebody who has
not been playing into shape in two days. But we’ll have to do our
best,” he added.

Point to prove

Siasia noted that
the local league could boast of good players and for him the WAFU
tournament is a stage for them to prove their worth:

“We have good players in our local league and we need to prove it on the pitch” he said.

“The boys will have to hit the ground running against Mali, as defending champions we are the team to beat” he said.

The second match of the day will see the other two teams in Group A,
Liberia and Niger take on to pitch as they both gun for a perfect start
to their campaign in the regional tournament.