15th January, 2013
Tunde Oyedele
The Super Eagles on Tuesday walloped Farense, a division two football club in Portugal, 5-0 in their final tune up match ahead of the 2013 African Cup of Nations, AFCON, which kicks off on Saturday.
Chelsea’s John Mikel Obi opened the floodgate of goals for the Nigerian team with a first half penalty kick, while the other four goals were scored in the second half of the friendly encounter played at the Eagles’ camp in Faro, Portugal.
Ikechukwu Uche, scored his first hat-trick for Nigeria today, as he netted three goals against Farense, before Emmanuel Emenike increased the tally to five for the goal hungry Eagles led by Coach Stephen Keshi.
Keshi used 19 of the 23 players in camp, and made eight changes in the friendly match, which was not shown live on television.
Interestingly, the Clemense Westerhof-coached Eagles, captained by Keshi himself, played Farense in their last friendly match before the Tunisia ’94 Nations Cup, and went ahead to win the trophy that year.
The Eagles, who defeated Rotterdam 1-0 in a friendly match last weekend, also played Grade A tune up games against Venezuela and a Catalonian selected side, which included 10 Barcelona players recently.
Nigeria defeated Venezuela 3-1 in Miami, Florida, played 1-1 draw with Catalonia in Spain and also played a goalless draw against Nations Cup bound debutants, Cape Verde in another friendly tie in Portugal last week.
Meanwhile, Keshi said the Eagles, who rounded off their preparations for the Nations Cup with the tune up game against Farense, would depart their Faro camp for South Africa tomorrow to participate in Africa’s biggest soccer championship slated for 19 January through 10 February.
In another international friendly match played ahead of the Nations Cup, Angola wrapped up their preparations by defeating Botswana 2-0.