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Super Eagles’ interim coach, Augustine Eguavoen has declared that everything is going well so far with regards to his preparations for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Megasportsarena.com reports that, although he had only six players in camp as at Friday night, the former defender, captain and head coach of the Nigerian national team enthused that all is well.
The AFCON 1994 winner as vice-captain and bronze medalist as head coach in 2016 added that he is not holding anything against those among his 28 invitees that failed to turn up on the Wednesday deadline as well as those that withdraw for various reasons.
‘Egu,’ who is the substantive technical director of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), added that club commitments, personal issues and the festive period accounted for the absences in camp up till early Saturday, being the first day of 2022.
That marked just seven days before AFCON 2021 begins next Sunday, January 9 in Yaoundé, Cameroon and barely over a week before the Eagles play Egypt in their first match on January 11 in Garoua, but ‘Cerezo’ stressed that there is no cause for alarm.
Rather than fret over lack of an early rush of players into his camp in Abuja, Eguavoen enthused that he would have a full house this weekend and expressed satisfaction at the high level of commitment he saw from the six players that were in camp and started training on Friday.
Chidozie Awaziem joined the early birds on Friday night, thereby taking the roll call of players in camp to seven, as he added to the initial arrivals of Silas Ndah, Mark Noble, Taiwo Awoniyi, Peter Olayinka, Chidera Ejuke and Daniel Akpeyi.
The gaffer reiterated that he is confident the lads will blend well before they step out for their first game of the campaign against 2019 hosts and seven-time winners, Egypt, before facing Sudan on the 15th and Guinea-Bissau on the 19th in Group B of the competition’s 33rd edition.
Eguavoen disclosed: “We have had two sessions, one morning and one in the afternoon and the six boys in the camp have responded well, we are still awaiting a whole lot of them to arrive.
“We are always in constant touch with them, they are not just here because they don’t want to be here, they have obligations and commitments to play the last league games before coming, so it’s going well so far.”
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