Don’t judge Super Eagles by Eaglets, U-23 victories, NFF tells Nigerians

26 players begin training for CHAN tomorrow

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has urged Nigerians not to measure Super Eagles’ performance by the recent victories of the national U-23 team at the 2016 Olympic Games’ football event qualifier in Senegal and the Golden Eaglets’ outstanding performance in Chile.

Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, the Federation’s Technical Committee Chairman, Felix Anyansi Agwu, who praised the U-23 team for fighting against all odds to qualify for the Rio Olympics and winning the African U-23 Nations Cup, noted that the Super Eagles have the potential to re-enact the performance of their junior counterparts if the current transformation process going on in the team succeeded.

He noted that Super Eagles’ manager, Sunday Oliseh, was working on getting the best players available to the country to compete for shirts in the team, saying that critics should be patient with the former Juventus star as he rebuilds the Eagles.

Anyansi added that the performances of the U-23 team and Golden Eaglets in the World and Africa Cadet tournaments were clear pointers that Nigeria has abundant talents that can take over the senior national team in future.

The Enyimba of Aba boss assured that the NFF would keep monitoring the activities of the players, who excelled in the championship, as the country now has a large pool of players to pick from when preparing for any major championship.

“I am delighted with the U-23 performance in the just concluded Olympic qualifiers. Their excellent performance and that of the Eaglets are clear indications that we have abundant talents in the country. But people should not use the results of the cadet teams to judge or write off the Super Eagles.

“Our major happiness now is that we have quality players that can come in to fight for shirts in the team. Nigerians need to be patient with Oliseh,” he said.

Meanwhile, 26 home-based players will resume training in Abuja today, ahead of the CHAN Championship slated for Rwanda, January, next year.

According to Super Eagles’ Media Officer, Toyin Ibitoye, the home-based lads will be having their first walk out on Tuesday under the supervision of the Super Eagles assistant coach, Salisu Yusuf.

He noted that the team Coach, Sunday Oliseh, who is still recovering from illness, will join the Eagles in South Africa where the team would round off their training for the CHAN .