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Flying Eagles held their last training session on Wednesday morning, preparatory to today’s win or bust 2024 WAFU Zone B Championship Group A clash at the Municipal Stadium, Lome, Togo, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
According to the team’s media officer, Sharif Abdullah, the session started at 8 a.m. local time (9 a.m. Nigerian time) and lasted for 1 hour, with the coach and his lieutenants focusing on further drilling the players tactically.
Nineteen players took part in the exercise, with the exception of striker Kparobo Ariehi, who is nursing minor blisters.
After losing 1-0 to Burkina Faso in their first match, the Flying Eagles are revved up to secure a win against the young Elephants and progress to the last four of the tournaments.
During an earlier chat with our correspondent, Abdullah said the players held a crucial meeting on Monday under the leadership of the skipper, Daniel Bameyi, resolving to go all out for a win.
He said the players were in high spirits and beaming with confidence, looking to once again overcome the challenge of storming back into contention after losing their opening match in a major international championship.
He said, “The spirit in the camp is extremely high; the boys know what is at stake is either a win or nothing. So, there are a lot of motivations. They have had a meeting among themselves, talking about how to draw inspiration from the defeat in the hands of Burkina Faso.
”They know what is at stake and are at the moment trying to do everything possible. The meeting with the team’s captain was about drawing inspiration from the previous occasions they overcame the setback.
“We’ve had the same setback in Egypt, and at the end of the day we bounced back and qualified for the World Cup in Argentina. It happened to us during the Africa Games, where we lost the first game to Senegal and bounced back against Uganda. It has happened not once, not twice, so it is left for us to draw some inspiration.
“This is what they discussed under the leadership of the team’s captain, Daniel Bameyi. The spirit is very high, and of course these boys want to, by all means, get the desired result against their Ivorian counterparts.”
The team’s head coach, Aliyu Zubairu, had blamed the loss to Burkina Faso on the physicality of the opponents that adversely affected their game plan. The scenario will be different against the young Elephants known for their fast and gritty approaches to matches.
The WAFU B U-20 Championship serves as the qualification for the 2025 Africa U20 Cup of Nations, with only the finalists going through.
This 2025 U20 AFCON will also serve as the African qualifiers for the 2025 FIFA U20 World Cup in Chile, where the four semi-finalists will qualify automatically.
