Super Eagles
The Super Eagles continued their build-up for the friendly against Niger Republic next Wednesday with a hard fought 2-0 win over FCT Federation Cup champions; Police Machine FC.
The match played at the FIFA Goal Project site, was watched by a scanty crowd that included NFF Technical Committee Chairman, Christopher Green and former international Siji Lagunju, who is an NFF scout.
The game started at exactly 8:20am with the FCT side made up of entirely serving policemen taking the early fight to the national team.
They were however repelled by the back four of Godfrey Oboabona, Azubuike Egwueke, Papa Idris and Juwon Oshaniwa. After five minutes of dilly-dallying, the Eagles midfield anchored by Gabriel Reuben and Solomon Jabason seized the initiatives and started pumping the attack with short and crisp passes.
Early chances fell to Uche Kalu, but were all wasted, Reuben blasted wide from 40 yards in the 15th minute, while newcomer, Benjamin Francis’ clever chip narrowly veered off the mark in the 24th minute to get the scanty crowd animated. Eagles’ goalie for the first half, Daniel Akpeyi was practically on holiday.
Big Boss Stephen Keshi featured an entirely fresh team in the second half but for two players.
Meanwhile, Head Coach of Police Machine FC of Abuja, Mukaila Ali, has chided the Super Eagles team that defeated his side 2-0 on Thursday for being casual and overconfident in the early parts of the game, declaring that if they tried such against a more experienced side they will be made to pay direly.
Ali, who spoke moments after the encounter, said the national team players probably thought that because his side campaigns in the Nationwide Division Two, they will be no match for them.
“We saw the arrogance of the team in the early parts of the game and tried to seize the initiatives before they woke up. I will advise Coach Stephen Keshi, as a senior colleague to tell his boys that there is no small team anywhere in the world and the boys must imbibe that in their game plan all the time”.
Ali, however, praised the high quality of the team, saying that the coaching crew took time to pick the best from the league to become national team players.