16th January, 2015
As the home-based Super Eagles file out tomorrow to play Yemen in an international friendly game in Abu Dhabi, James Peters, former assistant coach of the national team, has frowned at the choice of tackling the Middle East Arab nation after engaging Ivory Coast in a friendly encounter last Sunday.
Peters stressed that there is nothing to gain from playing a team ranked 176 by FIFA, which is far below Nigeria and if they are even beaten 10-0 by Nigeria, it will only give a false sense of arrival to the local players.
“We are not supposed to be playing this kind of matches; even when I was in NFF, we had an opportunity of playing this kind of friendly but I rejected it.
“We simply do not have anything to benefit from playing Yemen. With their level of football; we don’t have anything to learn.
Even if we beat them 10-0, we’ll think we have arrived and it will also make the players complacent. “We were supposed to have aimed playing a team tougher than Ivory Coast. We should not be accepting this kind of matches,” said Peters