Eagles demand more friendlies
The Super Eagles Team B made up entirely of professional players from the Nigeria Premier League has asked the leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) under Amaju Pinnick to organise more for the friendly matches for the team.
The players spoke after playing two exciting friendly games against Cote D’ Ivoire in Abu Dhabi and Yemen in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), losing the former 1-0 and winning the latter by 2-0.
Speaking on behalf of his teammates, team skipper, Chigozie Agbim, said all the players were very happy that they were not redundant in January, despite the mishap of non-qualification for the ongoing Nations Cup championship in Equatorial Guinea.
He said he was speaking the minds of his teammates, who made the same remarks after the friendly against Yemen on Saturday in Dubai.
“All the players were unanimous in saying that playing friendly games is a way of making the team jell together and building the unity of the team, the coaching staff and ensuring that the players are active throughout the year.
“What we want to demand is that this laudable development should not be a one off thing. We want sustenance of the culture of friendly matches in the Nigerian soccer system, so that we will get to know ourselves better and we will not have the problem of blending when we have crucial qualifying games like it happened in the ACN qualifiers,” Agbim said.
The team returned home yesterday, with Assistant Coach, Dan ‘The Bull’ Amokachi, admonishing the players to keep the same level of discipline and focus at their various club sides if they hope to receive future invitations to the national team. He praised the team’s level of concentration during the friendlies and said it must be sustained at their various club sides in the course of building a more virile national team.
Yemen Coach, Miroslav Skopp, who is a Czech, also had kind words for the Nigerian side, even as he conceded defeat to the reigning African champions. “Your team played tactically and technically well, as expected they were hard on the ball and they deserve to win” he said in Dubai on Saturday night.