BEVERLY HILLS, March 25, (THEWILL) – The senior men’s national football team of Nigeria, the Super Eagles, trained behind closed doors in their final workout before they travel by boat to the Republic of Benin for Saturday’s penultimate 2021 Total Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying tie against the Squirrels in Porto Novo.
The match which is billed for 5pm local time at the Stade Charles de Gaulle, will see the Super Eagles confirm their qualification with a draw on Saturday against Benin. That outcome will make their subsequent fixture at home in the Lagos State’s Teslim Balogun Stadium against the Crocodiles of Lesotho, a less cumbersome fixture for the Eagles.
Based on their schedule for training and travelling, the players and their officials will depart Lagos for Cotonou on Friday morning after ironing out chinks in their tactics and strategies to claim maximum points from the tie away from public view on Thursday. Based on instructions from coach Gernot Rohr and orders from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the media and public were barred from attending any more training sessions.
Intimating the media on how they have worked to get their game plan going, the German coach said: “The training was okay. It was a long training today because since it is Wednesday (yesterday), we still have a long time to recover so we wanted to work hard physically.
“The weather was good as it was not too hot so we could train for one hour 38 minutes which is a long time for a training session.”
The coach, who will be overseeing his first ever match at the Lagos State-owned Teslim Balogun Stadium himself was satisfied with the state of the pitch and commended the quality of the facilities management.
The stadium was picked to host the Super Eagles final qualifier against the Crocodiles of Lesotho on Tuesday, March 30.
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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
