Enyimba of Aba goalkeeper, Theophilus Afelokhai has declared that he and his colleagues in the home-based Eagles need luck to overcome Togo in the second leg of their Championship of African Nations qualifiers next weekend, as he fears a spell of bad fortune has struck the team, megasportsarena.com reports.
Taking his view back to how the Eagles failed to win any of their matches at the West African Football Union (WAFU) Cup of Nations in Thies, Senegal in the past week, Afelokhai reasoned that it was all down to bad luck against the team, which he says they now have to overcome before taking on Togo in the reverse fixture of their CHAN 2020 elimination series.
The first leg ended in a shock 4-1 loss for Nigeria in Lome, such that Coach Imama Amapakabo has a tall order to overcome in the second leg, but Afelokhai has now boldly declared that it will take more than tactics and technical acumen to overcome The Hawks.
Rather than also bank on his abilities and the skills of his teammates to pull Nigeria through into the main event at CHAN 2020 in Cameroon, Afelokhai called on soccer lovers and stakeholders to start fervent prayers that will release the team from the spell of misfortune and turn the recent ugly tide around for them, in order to avoid another defeat by the Togolese.
He stressed that the issue must not be waved aside or taken with a pinch of salt, as his several years of experience in the round leather game have thought him to notice when a chain of poor results a team is facing go beyond the ordinary, which means a spiritual solution is then needed.
The veteran shot-stopper in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) went on to buttress his point by pointing out that Amapakabo’s side played better than Togo and Cape Verde in both matches they played during the main competition and classification segments of the WAFU Cup in Senegal, but he insisted that they lost the two games only due to bad luck against them.
Afelohai exhorted generally: “Let’s us pray for luck in order for us to beat Togo. I know what I am saying. I’ve been through the system and I have the experience. It is not ordinary when your team is playing better than your opponent but you continue losing.
“During this WAFU Cup in Senegal, we played better than all the teams, but we lacked luck. We are always giving our best and we keep pressing the opponent, but they end up winning the match. That’s why we need to pray well before we play Togo in the second leg of the qualifiers. We have to pray that our luck will come back, otherwise we will lose again.”
