Sports
W/Cup Qualifiers: Keshi Restates Readiness For Kenya
Super Eagles Coach, Stephen Keshi has stated that his team will need to re-enact their Nations Cup winning form in the crucial World Cup qualifying game against Kenya next month, using the friendly against Mexico as a crucial test.
The home-based contingent of the Super Eagles travelled to Germany for a training camp last week were they will take on Mexico on May 31 after being joined by their Euro-based counterparts.
“We need to continue and in fact we are continuing from where we stopped in South Africa where we won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations. We hope to continue to build a strong team that would be able to withstand the test of time,” Keshi said.
“I believe this team has the capacity and talents to get to the level that we want them to be. The performance of the new players in the match against Mexico will give us more options in the team.
“A good result in this match will put us in good stead for the important 2014 World Cup qualifying match first against Kenya in Nairobi and the second one also away to Namibia.
“So we need to play well and play good against Mexico to toughen us ahead of the qualifiers,” the former coach of Togo and Mali emphasised.It will be recalled that Nigeria forced Kenya to a 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture played at the UJ Esuene Stadium, Calabar.
Meanwhile, Goalkeeper Austin Ejide was the first of the Europe-based professionals to report to the Super Eagles camp in Germany on Monday, as the team continued their training programme ahead of a busy summer schedule.
Ejide joined up with the squad of 12 local professionals who arrived last Friday at their Novina Hotel lodgings in Nuremberg.
Later in the day, the squad were joined by first-time call up Anthony Ujah.
The Super Eagles have a friendly game against Mexico on May 31, then follow that with two 2014 World Cup qualifying matches against Kenya and Namibia before heading off to Brazil for the FIFA Confederations Cup tournament.
A well-known football pundit in the State, Chief Christopher Okonkwo has lauded the efforts and vision of the Super Eagles Coach Eric Chelle for going from one venue of the Nigeria Domestic Nigeria Professional Football League match to the other in monitoring Nigerian players, with a view to invite some exceptional good one discovered into the main stream of the Super Eagles team.
Okonkwo, who made the commendation in an interview at the Port Harcourt Club recently, described the positive move by Coach Chelle as a good step in the right direction, noting that the practice was how its been done in the past among any contracted coach assigned to tinker the Super Eagles team.
“Truly, it has been an old tradition in the country seeing any newly engaged Coach to lead the National team, visiting some our Nigeria League venues during the league matches to spot light some good talents that could be used to beef up some grey areas in the department of Eagles team”
He, however, frowned at the current situation where our coaches had continously been over depending on the use of foreign based players during invitation of players to the National camp, thereby, relegating the domestic home based league players to the background as if they have nothing much to offer to the team.
“I can vividly recall that the likes of great players in the mode of Finidi George, Taribo West, Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Okocha, Richard Owobokiri, Emmanuel Osuigwe among others started from Nigeria football league before they graduated to play in Europe through which they later invited to Super Eagles camp to represent Nigeria”
“Besides, I’m also of the view that going to secondary school football competitive games could equally serves as a a good platform to discover budding talents that could be nurtured to become great stars in near future”, Okonkwo frankly added.
Okonkwo, therefore, prayed that any football coach to be engaged by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to tinker the Super Eagles should be told not to confine himself in staying in big hotel alone but to be visiting some of our local league match venues, with a view to discover some good players that can be drafted into the Super Eagles team.
“Indeed, I stand to be challenged that there some young good players in the Nigeria Professional League. If spotted and exposed, could give the some of the invited foreign based players a stiff competitive fight in securing a postion in the team”, Okonkwo emphatically stated.
Ezechukwu, one of the youngest members of the Nigerian contingent at the championship in Ghana, said her ambition was to win the 100m title in style and cap it with a new personal record.
The fresh secondary school graduate explained that she is fully focused on contributing to Team Nigeria’s medal hopes and is determined to deliver strong performances across her events.
“My main objective in Ghana is to clinch the 100m title and the 4×100m,” Ezechukwu told Tidesports source.
“Nigeria can be assured of my very best and my commitment to the Team. I would love to set a new personal best in Ghana, but anything that comes, I will take it. The spirit in the team is high, and I think we are ready to go,” she said.
Ezechukwu, who was part of Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relay squad at the World Relays in Botswana, said the experience gained from that competition has strengthened her mindset heading into the continental championships.
She admitted that she learned valuable lessons from her previous outing, including a difficult moment during the relay where an early error affected the team’s rhythm, but said she has used the experience to improve her discipline and composure.
“The secret is just being disciplined, training hard and trusting my coach and believing in God, and the result will show,” she added.
The teenager is part of a 41-member Nigerian team comprising 24 female and 17 male athletes competing at the championships, which begin today at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Nigeria are expected to compete across multiple track and field events as they aim for a strong finish against the continent’s elite athletes.
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