18th February, 2013
Chief Coach of Nigeria’s U-20 Flying Eagles, John Obuh has warned that he would deal decisively with erring players in his team as the country prepares for the African Youth Championship, AYC in Algeria from 16-30 March.
As part of the build up to the AYC, the Flying Eagles, at the weekend in Abuja, played a goalless draw with their Benin Republic counterparts in an international friendly match.
In the match played at the astro-turf pitch of the National Stadium’s Package B, the Flying Eagles had the upper hand in spite of playing one man short after 63 minutes.
This was after defender Ikechukwu Okorie was sent off for dangerous play.
Both teams had played out a 1-1 draw when both teams first clashed in September, started out brightly and created some openings.
Benin later created anxious moments for their Nigerian hosts as they took control of the game following the numerical advantage.
Obuh said the match helped him to further assess the team. He said he had discovered that his players need to be more disciplined.
“Their lack of discipline led to the red card given to one of them, and this gave us some problems,’’ Obuh said.
He, however, rated his players’ performance as being above average.
“The game was okay, having to play with one player down. They (the players) were able to sustain it.
“I was supposed to substitute three players but because of the situation I had to make more than three changes.
“But I am okay with the game. It is just that my players showed indiscipline by the way they dressed and I am going to deal with that,’’ Obuh said.
Alohoutade Ulrich, the coach of Benin Republic team, said his team lost so many chances of winning the game, noting that he would have to work on the players’ scoring ability.
“Both teams are, however, good sides and we are looking forward to a successful outing at the AYC competition,’’ he said.
NAN reports that the team will depart Nigeria today for two friendly matches against Algeria and Egypt on 20 and 22 February respectively.
It will later move to Tunisia for the final phase of its preparation, from where it will head to Algeria for the competition.