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Nigeria’s senior national team, the Super Eagles on Thursday,
arrived in the United States of America with scores of Nigerians attending to
welcome the side ahead of this weekend’s commencement of the United States
President’s Holiday Celebration Soccer Tournament. The Super Eagles contingent
arrived at Dallas’s Fort Worth International Airport around 10am local time on
Thursday (4:00pm Nigerian time) following a few hours’ stopover in Atlanta,
Georgia.

The United States-based supporters of the Super Eagles, mostly
residents of the city of Dallas, in the state of Texas, were also at the
national team’s Double Tree Hotel base camp to receive the players along with
the accompanying officials following their departure from the airport.

The team of 20 players – all of them from club sides in the
Nigerian Premier League – and nine officials led by head coach Samson Siasia will,
while in the United States, play two matches in the invitational tournament
also known as the Green Bowl Soccer Tournament, holding at the Cotton Bowl
Soccer Stadium this weekend.

Their opening match comes up by 7:00pm local time on Saturday
(1:00am on Sunday in Nigeria) against Mexico at the Cotton Bowl Stadium before
playing the winner of the tournament’s opening game between Panama and Costa
Rica the following day at 7:00pm local time, that is, if they are able to
overcome the Mexicans.

If Siasia’s side however fails to overcome the Mexicans in
Saturday’s opener, they will have to make do with the Losers’ Final which comes
up by 4:30pm local time (10:30pm on Sunday in Nigeria). Both games – the
Losers’ Final and the Final itself – will also come up at the Cotton Bowl
Stadium which was the venue of the Super Eagles’ first ever FIFA World Cup game
back in 1994 against the national team of Bulgaria.

Good opportunity

Siasia, had in an interview with NEXT prior to the team’s
departure for the United States expressed optimism regarding his team’s chances
at the tournament which he hopes to further use in discovering new players for
the national side ahead of future engagements, most notably the qualifying
matches of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

“It is a good opportunity to get to see what some of the boys
can do outside of the training ground. It is also a good opportunity to see how
many of them will get to remain in our plans for the challenges ahead,
especially the qualifiers,” he said.

The Super Eagles had previously played two matches in the Cup of
Nations qualifiers winning 2-0 against Madagascar in September before suffering
a 1-0 loss to Guinea at the start of October. Their next game comes up against
Ethiopia on March 27 at a yet to be decided venue in Nigeria before completing
the qualifying series with the reverse fixtures against all three nations.

But with only the winner of the group guaranteed a qualification spot to
next year’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament to be jointly hosted by Equatorial
Guinea and Gabon, the Super Eagles need to win all of their remaining fixtures
if they are to stand any chance of overtaking current leaders Guinea on the log
standings.