Calabar, the idyllic capital city of Cross River State, would host the Golden Eaglets upcoming 2015 CAN Under-17 qualifiers just as the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF) confirmed that Governor Liyel Imoke has graciously approved the camping of the team at the Canaan City yet again.
This much was disclosed by Emmanuel Ikpeme, Director Technical of the NFF while speaking to officials and players of the Golden Eaglets after their hard won 3-2 win against Egypt in Kaduna on Wednesday.
Ikpeme said the sport-loving e Governor who is regarded as the pillar behind the National Under-17 Team successful campaign in 2013, has granted NFF’s request to have Calabar as its base even as he charged
the team to be up and doing.
“I want to congratulate you for the victory against Egypt because it was not an easy game for you,” Ikpeme said.”Personally, I came here not with the impression that you were going to beat the Egyptians
rather, to see what the coaches have been doing over the last few weeks and I’m impressed with what I saw; though the truth is that you still have a lot of work to do.
“The reason the federation organised the friendly matches was for the coaches to have a continuous assessment of your performance and I want to commend the chief coach, Emmanuel Amuneke and other member of the technical crew as well as the back room staff but I’m confident you would get better by the time you go into closed camping.
” As a matter of fact, I want to use this opportunity to inform you that the Governor of Cross River State has approved your return to Calabar which we believe would give you a conducive
environment to work on these young players,” he said.
Apart from camping the Golden Eaglets in their successful campaign the last term, Governor Imoke rewarded players and officials of the 2013 World Cup winning Golden Eaglets with house gifts.
Speaking on the Governor’s latest gesture, Tayo Egbaiyelo, 2013 World Cup- winning secretary, commended the continuous magnanimity of the people and government of Cross River State, saying that the team would remain steadfast in the pursuit of excellence.
Eaglets, Junior Pharaohs renew hostility Junior Pharaohs’ Coach Gamel Mohammed Ali has vowed to ring tactical changes when playing the Golden Eaglets yet again in another international friendly at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium on Friday.
Both sides played a pulsating match when the Egyptians surrendered a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 to the Golden Eaglets on Wednesday at the same venue.
Speaking ahead of Friday’s match, Ali said he’s now tactically aware to deal with the Golden Eaglets, adding that the second encounter would equally be interesting.
“First, I want to congratulate Nigeria for the victory today (Wednesday) because they came from a difficult position to achieve victory,” said Ali.”We scored two early goals but my players were tired thereafter but I warned them that Nigerian players could be dangerous if you allowed them to express themselves.”
Ali said the match on Friday would be interesting for obvious reasons, insisting that he would make thing difficult for the Golden Eaglets next time out.
He further said:” The result of the match is not really important since we have been able to test the strength of my players against a physical team like Nigeria because we are going to play Sudan in the
African qualifiers. Sudanese players have good physical fitness and almost same style like Nigerians, so it is good for my team.
“Friday’s match is also going to be very good because I now know the Nigerian team much better and I will make my team played to instruction in order for us to get good result.”
Meanwhile, the Golden Eaglets have spoken in unanimity about correcting the lapses that made them concede two early goals against the North Africans while reviewing Wednesday’s match.
“We marked poorly and lost concentration but we are surely going to do very well on Friday,” noted Kolawole Gbadamosi, the left- full back
