Eguavoen targets victory in Monrovia
Despite admitting
little or no prior knowledge of Nigeria’s opponent, Liberia, in the All
Africa Games qualifying match coming up tomorrow at the Samuel Kanyon
Doe Sports Complex in Monrovia, national U-23 coach, Austin Eguavoen
says he will be gunning for victory in this first test at making it to
the Maputo Games coming up in September.
“I don’t have much information on them but we will be going all out for victory” he said.
“We never had much
information on Equatorial Guinea either but we ended up beating them
9-1. We have done our part to prepare well for the match and we will
build on the little information we have”.
Though victory is
on their minds, Nigeria’s delegation to Monrovia know it won’t come
easy, as they were already given a dose of what to expect on arrival at
the Roberts International Airport in Liberia on Thursday.
The team was
delayed for over three hours with the host football association
claiming ignorance of the arrival of the Nigerian team.
“It was a big
issue”, said Nigeria Football Federation’s technical committee
chairman, Chris Green, who led the team to Monrovia. “Our team was at
the airport for three hours before we saw some officials of the Liberia
FA. It was not good enough,” Green added.
Not distracted
Unperturbed by the
pranks being played by the Liberians, Eguavoen said: “We know their
plan but I can assure you that the treatment would in no way affect our
game on Saturday. We are prepared for the match and would not be
distracted by this kind of thing”.
Nigeria failed to
make it to the last All African Games football event in Algiers but are
hoping to make a return to Africa’s version of the Olympic Games this
year.
Only 20 players made the trip with Eguavoen to Monrovia, one of whom
is former U-17 and U-20 star midfielder, Rabiu Ibrahim, who assured
fans of victory over Liberia. “I know it won’t be an easy game over
there (in Monrovia) but I want to assure our fans that we have a strong
team and very good coaches that will win the game (against Liberia)”,
he said. The match will be played on Saturday by 7pm (Nigerian time).
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