Nigeria’s B-squad senior national team, home-based Eagles will on Monday face Cape Verde in a formality match at the West Africa Football Union (WAFU) Cup of Nations, as the fixture in Thies, Senegal is between losers from the main draw, megasportsarena.com reports.
However, it will be an opportunity for Imama Amapakabo’s wards to redeem their image, after falling twice to Togo in one week, as Monday’s game is tagged losers’ quarter-final, and will lead to a semi-final ticket and possible spot in the final of the Plate Segment at the ongoing 2019 WAFU Cup, after both teams lost their qualification matches last weekend.
The Eagles fell 2-1 to Togo in their only match of the main competition and will now have to withstand efforts for a revival by Cape Verde, who were dismantled 4-1 in their own match, but will seek an opportunity to head into the head to the semi-finals of the Plate Section.
Though the home-based Eagles reached the final two years ago in Ghana, Amapakkabo says the team should not be castigated by Nigerians for failing to make progress this time out, as he is using the competition to prepare young players in the squad for next month’s African U23 Cup of Nations in Egypt, which serves as qualifying tournament for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Incidentally, with the AFCON U23 competition now round the corner, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have started talks with some foreign-base players for them to be released by their clubs, as the soccer body has made qualifying for the 2020 Olympics soccer event a priority.
The Olympic Eagles are in the same group with Cote D’Ivoire, South Africa and Zambia for Egypt 2019, where the Nigerian team are the defending champions but, ahead of the championship in November, the squad was not convincing in the qualifiers, losing away to Libya and Sudan before recovering in the return leg on both occasions, but it was with the help of foreign-based players.
A top official of the NFF told Owngoalnigeria.com: “We can’t afford to miss the Olympics. This team has done well with the inclusion of foreign-based players and we won’t take any chance regarding their availability. As a body we have already commenced talks with some clubs.”
