Chukwu, Erico: Angola 2010 draws favour Super Eagles

Category: Sports Published on Saturday, 21 November 2009 01:53 Written by Ibraheem A. Fatai Hits: 1613

The Super Eagles of Nigeria will have their hands full as they have found themselves in the same group with five time winners, of the Africa Cup of Nations, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Mambas of Mozambique and Squirrels of Benin Republic after the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations draws that was held yesterday in Luanda.

Reacting to the draw, former Captain and coach of the Super Eagles, Christian Chukwu, said the draw was the best Nigeria could get, saying the race for the top position of the group should be between the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Super Eagles of Nigeria.

Chukwu maintained that there will be no serious problem for the Super Eagles, if the necessary preparation for the team commences in earnest and new blood injected into the team.

He opined that the present Eagles have aged so much and would not be able to win a major championship like the Africa Cup of Nations.

“There is not going to be a serious problem for the Super Eagles in the group C where they will be playing against Egypt, Mozambique and Benin. If we can prepare our team very well for the championship, we should not have serious problem scaling through the group, in spite of some resistance that is going to come from some of the underdogs in the group.

“But, the team that we are having presently will find it very difficult to fly very high in Angola, if we leave it the way it is now. There is need to inject new blood into the team, because the team appears to be ageing. We should introduce new boys from the last U-20 and U-17 teams. Some of them can play better than some of the ageing players we have in the Super Eagles,’’ Chukwu opined.

Also reacting to the draw, ex-international and former Super Eagles assistant coach, Joe Erico, expressed happiness at the level of opposition the Super Eagles are going to face when they meet the winner of the last two editions of the championship, Egypt, and Mozambique, whose victory over Tunisia was all the Eagles needed to land in South Africa.

“The stronger the opposition the Super Eagles face, the better for them. I am particularly happy that we are going to meet a very strong opposition like Egypt and Mozambique, who have proven that they are giant killers. That level of opposition will enable us to prepare very well for the championship.

“The time to prepare for Angola is now. We should start to organize grade A friendly matches for the Super Eagles to put them in a competitive mood for the Nations Cup. Our team is far from what can win the African trophy, because of what we saw during the qualifier. But, we can still do something very fast to ensure that we do not go to Angola only to make up the number.

“We should also bear in mind that there is no minnows in football anymore. The race is clearly between the Super Eagles and Egypt, but anything can happen. Nobody would have thought that Algeria would qualify for the World Cup at the expense of Egypt, who was highly favoured to take the group ticket,” he reasoned.

 Erico, however, tipped the Super Eagles and Egypt to qualify from the group if the two giants in the group can put their houses in order, saying although Benin and Mozambique will put up some resistance, Eagles and Egypt will still make use of their wealth of experience to secure the two tickets in the group.