Sunday Oliseh, coach of the Super Eagles of Nigeria, says his players are working at the CAF African Nations Championship “like a motor without a petrol tank”.
But Oliseh, who was speaking ahead of the quarter-final decider against Guinea, expressed hopes that his boys would not “break” even though they are humans.
“We are trying to do our best to get to the next stage despite the challenges we have been facing. I am not going to go into the details about what we have been facing here, but I can tell you that my boys have been working under a lot of duress since we got here in Rwanda,” he said.
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“It is like a motor working without a petrol tank. For that reason this is another difficulty we have to surmount, but that notwithstanding the boys are human being and lets just hope we don’t break.”
Oliseh assured Nigerians that the Eagles were focused on fighting to get to the next round of the competition, saying: “We have our game plan, as we are here for business and not ready to take the next available flight home to Nigeria.
“When you come from Nigeria for a competition, you don’t say you are there to witness it, especially a competition in Africa.
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“We have ambition to also win it but we have to be very realistic, since we are building a completely new team who have been together for just a little while compared to countries like DR Congo, Tunisia and all those who came with their real team. But that doesn’t mean we want to leave the competition in the group stage.”
He concluded by revealing that he might replace two key players due to health issues:“You will likely see some changes in the game against Guinea, due to the fact that we are not sure of the health of the two players, Chisom Chikatara and Usman Mohammed, as we earlier mentioned.”
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