Ahead of Sunday's epic quarter final match against host Ghana's Black stars, the Super Eagles of Nigeria are expected to arrive Accra today for the match the team is aiming to win and grab the semi final berth for the fifth consecutive time since 2000.
The Eagles have also been paid their $15,000 qualification bonus for making the quarterfinals of the competitiion. The money was paid to the players yesterday morning.According to the Secretary General of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) Bolaji Ojo-Oba, the team, going by CAF regulations, was expected to have left Sekondi yesterday for one of the hotels reserved for the teams that have crashed out in group A.
But they decided to remain in the semi urban city for an extra day in order to strategise for the match which they have vowed to oust the host nation from the tournament.
"We won't leave here till later today," he explained.
However, an advance party left Sekondi yesterday to prepare all the logistics that would be required for the match on Sunday. The party, led by NFA's first Vice-Chairman Amanze Uchegbulam, is expected to inspect the accommodation provided by the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the tournament and check if they could secure an alternative if need be.
A similar scenario played itself out at the last edition in Egypt when the Nigeria team refused to leave Port Said for Alexandria the appointed day for the semi match against the Elephants of Cote d'Ivoire which Super Eagles lost by a lone goal.
The NFA instead accept to foot the bills of the extra days spent at the port city while the official hotel reserved for them in Alexandria was idle.
Meanwhile, there was a mild drama at the Ray Bow Hotel abode of the Super Eagles yesterday when the Syli Stars of Guinea insisted that they wanted to take over the Nigerian accommodation ahead of their quarter final match against group B winners, Cote d'Ivoire.Although Nigeria refused to budge, however, reports out of the Guinea camp, was that their desire to take over the Super Eagles' accommodation would serve as a moral booster for them as against the hotel used by the now ousted Mali.
They feel staying there (Mali camp) would bring bad luck to them.
However, at the end of the talks, Nigeria retained their stay at Ray Bow while the Guineans had to make do with Mali's Ray Fresh hotel located in Takaoradi.
No comments:
Post a Comment