Nigeria U23 begin their campaign for a place in Rio Olympics when they face Mali on Sunday in the 2015 African U23 Championship in Senegal. Having missed out of the 2012 edition, the country’s football federation head has expressed poise in the competence of coach Samson Siasia to lead the Dream Team to Rio. “Presently, we are on a roll of good results and we are determined that those must continue,” Pinnick reportedly said on the NFF website.
“It’s been an exciting past few months during which we have won U-17 World Cup, qualified for the U20 Women’s World Cup and reached the group stage of the African series for the 2018 Fifa World Cup. “The NFF is backing Samson Siasia because he is always keen to succeed. He has brought new, exciting faces to the group and there is confidence all around again. The ticket to the Olympics is non-negotiable” said the NFF President.
Pinnick feels Senegal will prove to be a hunting ground for Nigeria after
the Flying Eagles won the 2015 African Youth Championship in March there. “We won the U-20 Cup of Nations in Senegal at the beginning of the year; now,
we are back there for the Olympics ticket and the trophy,” he continued. “We will achieve both, because Samson Siasia has put together a crack squad
and he has the support of the NFF all the way.”
In a related development, following the late call up given to 2015 FIFA U-17 golden boy, Victor Osimhen, Christian Chukwu feels the forward’s inexperience is not
necessarily a problem and says he can flourish in the same way as Pele and
Neymar.
In his words “Osimhen is a talented player and he is not too young to play in the Under-23 team,” Chukwu told Punch. He further stated that “many world-class players began at a very young age. Pele and Neymar started playing for the Brazilian senior national team when they were very young. “Osimhen is not even too young to play in the Super Eagles. The Under 23 team is a good place for him to develop and I believe his
participation in the tournament (Senegal 2015) will do him a lot of good as well as helping the team.”
The former Super Eagles head coach also advised the Nigeria U23 team to
win their first match against Mali on Sunday to put them in a good position for
the title challenge. “The first match of any competition is very important if the team wants to
go far. It helps to avoid the trouble of resulting to permutations to leave the
group and it also eases pressure off a team in the other matches,” he
concluded.Should Osimhen make Siasia's team against Mali, he would be playing Mali back to back in competitively, following his last game for the U-17 in Chile in the final against Mali. the top three team at the 2015 African Youth Championship will represent Africa at the Rio 2016
men’s football event.
Follow us on twitter @bizarre_comms
Email: bizarrecommunications@gmail.com
Facebook: Bizarre Communications
Follow us on twitter @bizarre_comms
Email: bizarrecommunications@gmail.com
Facebook: Bizarre Communications
0 comments: