Sports
S/Africa To Train In Brazil, Germany 2010 W/Cup
World Cup hosts South Africa will hold training camps in Brazil and Germany to prepare for the 2010 tournament.
The South African Football Association (Safa) says there will be four training camps for Bafana Bafana.
The side will head to Brazil in March and Germany in April.
The plans were made before the re-appointment of Carlos Alberto Parreira as coach but he will have some input, national team general manager Sipho Nkumane said.
South Africa’s league will shut down in January for the first training camp, expected to be at altitude somewhere in the country.
The season is also finishing early to allow Parreira time to work with the home-based players, who form about half of the expected squad for the 2010 finals.
South Africa will train in Brazil for four weeks from 6 March and then go to Germany for a camp from April 13-28.
The team will be based in Herzogenaurach in Germany but the Brazilian venue has yet to be fixed.
A final training camp will start on 6 May before the World Cup kicks off on 11 June, Safa added.
The team have four international warm-up games fixed over the next six months with matches at home against Japan on 14 November and Jamaica three days later.
They will then travel to play Chile on 3 March and Jamaica on 10 April.
Nkumane said negotiations were ongoing with North and South Korea for possible friendly internationals in January and with Argentina, Costa Rica and Paraguay for games in March.
Iwobi spoke to Tidesports source ahead of Nigeria’s crunch playoff semi-final against Gabon on Thursday, November 13, in Rabat, Morocco.
The 28-year-old was reacting to Nigeria’s shaky World Cup qualifying campaign that saw the Eagles finish second in Group C behind South Africa’s Bafana Bafana.
“We’ve managed to rescue ourselves from the dead,” Iwobi told Tidesports source.
We know we have the players and the abilities to compete against any other country in the world.”
The Fulham star pointed to Nigeria’s star power, highlighting African Footballer of the Year winners Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimhen as proof of the squad’s quality.
“We have last year’s African best player (Ademola Lookman), the year before that (Victor Osimhen),” he said.
“It’ll be a shame if we don’t make it, but we have a lot of confidence. We just have to prove it to ourselves.”
Nigeria’s path to the United States, Canada and Mexico has been turbulent, with two coaches departing during the early stages of qualifying before Éric Chelle steadied the ship to steer the Super Eagles into November’s CAF playoffs.
Four nations from the continent – Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo and Gabon – will vie for a solitary spot to compete in next March’s inter-confederation playoffs, with a view to joining the already nine qualified African nations at the Finals.
It would mark Iwobi’s second appearance at the World Cup Finals and the Super Eagles’ first since the 2018 edition of the competition.
Back then, Iwobi featured in all three games as Nigeria was knocked out in the group stage.
The Chief Executive Officer(CEO) and Publisher of the Atlantic Bell Online medium, Mr. Celestine Ogolo has advised sports writers in Nigeria to diversify in sports writing and not to concentrate on football reporting alone.
The Deputy National President of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) Mr. Bonny Nyong has expressed commitment to support sports development and move SWAN forward.