We won it ‘the hard way’, says Siasia

Nigeria’s U-23 team coach, Samson Siasia, was a relieved man at the post-match conference after his team’s hard-fought victory over Zambia.

The Dream Team defeated Zambia 2-1 in their second leg, final round of their 2015 All-Africa Games qualifier in Lusaka on Sunday.

A brace from Taiwo Awoniyi gave Nigeria a 2-1 aggregate win which earned them a ticket to Congo-Brazzaville for the men’s football event of the AAG.

And it was an elated Siasia who spoke on the win and future prospect of the team.

“We take this team very seriously because we want to qualify for the All Africa Games (AAG). It has been a very long time since we last qualified for the competition,” he said.

“We are also preparing for the Olympic qualifiers too but this one (AAG) will help us prepare a lot better because we will continue playing friendly games.

“This team has been together for just about four months. It is a team that is growing.

“With time, we will see better performances from this team and more chances will be created in the games we play.

“The chances we missed in Nigeria against Zambia in the first leg were a little bit too much.

“We came out here to do it the hard way. It was a difficult game, but we thank God that we played to instructions.

“We had those chances and we took them and that’s what football is about.”

However, the former Super Eagles coach admitted the second leg would have been less tasking for his team had they converted the many chances they created in the first leg which ended goalless in Abuja.

“From our games that we played earlier, we always played better away from home. We scored four goals against Gabon,” he said.

“We don’t play that well at home. We had a couple of chances at home – clear cut chances – we didn’t score.

“Our plan was to come here and defend high up (the pitch) and so we could catch them on fast breaks and that was actually what happened.”