Former Super Eagles goalkeepers’ trainer, Joe Erico has come out with a verdict that Brazil’s 1-1 draw with Senegal is a result that should motivate the Nigerian players to get a better result against the South Americans on Sunday, as he believes Gernot Rohr’s squad would be motivated to do better than their West African rivals, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although he also acknowledged that Brazil could now decide to step up their game against Nigeria, in order to make up for Thursday’s day’s stalemate at Singapore National Stadium, Erico is of a view that the Eagles should be able to do better than what Senegal did at same venue.
Speaking against the backdrop of The Teranga Lions’ ability to storm back from an early goal conceded against the Brazilians, Erico reasoned that Nigeria’s Eagles should be able to take a cue from that feat, knowing fully that they are toe-to-toe with the Senegalese on current form.
While Senegal are the continent’s number two ranked team in the current ratings announced by world soccer governing body, FIFA, and justified it by placing second at the recent Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, Nigeria proved the global soccer sanctioning body right by placing third in the same championship, but Erico argued that the Eagles should be able to show their value as well.
He added during Mega Sports on Star 101.5 FM, Lagos that the Eagles have more quality players overall than Senegal, who he believes rely mostly on Liverpool’s Sadio Mane and Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly, hence his verdict that Nigeria will get a better result on Sunday.
‘The Jogo Bonito Exponent,’ however, stopped short of categorically declaring that Nigeria will win Sunday’s match, as he concluded with a reminder that football is not mathematics, where all calculations base on a template of figures will end in the same result, such that it will now be up to the Eagles to go all out to prove permutations right that they can do better than Senegal.
Erico stressed: “The Super Eagles should get a better result against Brazil than Senegal did on Thursday, because we have more pronounced players in every department.
