Home-Based Super Eagles’ Coach Salisu Yusuf is thrilled by the performance of his wards in Monday’s game against Sierra Leone despite the limited time they had to prepare for their opening game of the on-going WAFU Nations Cup holding in Ghana.
Moses Okoro and Moses Peter scored a goal apiece for the Yusuf led team in the final five minutes of the tie to hand the Super Eagles a 2-0 win at the Cape Coast Sports Stadium and see them progress into the group stage.
Yusuf made it clear that Nigeria’s preparation for the WAFU tournament took a back seat while they were playing Cameroon in back-to-back 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
The Eagles only arrived in Ghana late last night, while today’s opponents Sierra Leone have been around since last week Wednesday.
“We may not have trained as a team before this match because of the final day of the season on Saturday, but I believe we can rely on what we have done as a team during our training camp for the CHAN qualifiers against Benin,” he told Reporters.
“The spine of the squad is from the CHAN qualifiers and good enough all the players have been playing regularly for their various clubs.”
Yusuf will stick to his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation with skipper Ikechukwu Ezenwa leading a defence likely to be made Chima Akas, Osas Okoro, Stephen Eze and Emmanuel Ariwachukwu.
Ifeanyi Ifeanyi and Akwa United teammate Afeez Aremu will be the two defensive midfielders, while Friday Ubong also of Akwa United and NPFL champion with Plateau United Peter Eneji the wingers and Kingsley Eduwo the top striker.
“We didn’t have training [except for] one day because we were so much concerned with the World Cup qualifiers against Cameroon,” he told the post-match press conference.
“It’s the most important. We have qualified for CHAN [African Nations Championship], so we had to take a risk that all our concentration will be on the World Cup first.
“It was a good decision and it was a good game, because we came here with the same squad that played Benin in the last CHAN qualifier and we played the same system.
