NFA Charges Eagles To Sustain Momentum

The Nigeria Football Association (NFA) has urged the Super Eagles to sustain their current form after defeating the Lone Stars of Liberia by 2-0 in a friendly match last week.

The Eagles had come out tops against their hard-fighting hosts, at the Antoinette Taubman Stadium in Monrovia where they won convincingly.

NFA Secretary, Musa Amadu, in a statement on Thursday in Lagos urged the home boys to work harder ahead of the crucial 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifier against the Wasps of Rwanda on February, 29.

The statement described the win against the Liberians as a good one, meaning that Keshi’s rebuilding process with the home-based players was not an exercise in futility.

It noted that the team had been improving with each match after their first goalless encounter against Angola on January 11 in Abuja.

It added that the country now had a reliable home-based squad it could call on at a short notice for future engagements.

The statement said that the home-based players were capable of giving their foreign-based counterparts a good fight for a place in the Super Eagles line up.

It cautioned against the notion that the foreign-based players were being discarded for their locally based colleagues and assured Nigerians that they were still relevant to the rebuilding process.

On the newly released FIFA rankings in which Nigeria emerged in the eight position in Africa and 56 in the world, Amadu attributed the slide to the country’s absence from the just-concluded AFCON co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

It restated that the NFA was working hard to ensure that the Super Eagles regained their status in world football ranking.