Sports
Eguma Laments Rivers United’s Tight Fixtures
Rivers United Coach, Stanley Eguma, has lamented the club’s tight fixtures as the 2020/21 Nigeria Professional Football League draws comes to a close end.
With the draws for the 2021/22 CAF club competitions planned for August 15, the Nigeria Football Federation and the Nigeria Professional Football League increased the number of games per week, with some clubs having to play as much as three games per week.
According to Eguma, the fixtures caused his team a lot of fatigue.
“That’s the fixtures, we have lamented on the fixtures right from the beginning and as you can see, it’s taking its toll on the team, we don’t have any option now than to respond to the fixtures,” he said.
He also said, despite the team placing fifth – eight points behind leaders Akwa United, with three games to go, they won’t give up on winning the league title until the last day.
“Those games are very important, we cannot write ourselves off because it’s a competition. We need to work hard till the last day, we are not too far from the team in the first position, so it’s very possible that we can catch up. If not the trophy, we can also get a Champions League ticket from that, but we are working hard towards our objective of picking a trophy,” Eguma said.
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.
