Olympics Qualifiers: Eguavoen Banks On Senegal’s Fall To Qualify

Coach of Nigeria’s U-23 Eagles, Austin Eguavoen, is looking forward to the downfall of the Junior Terenga Lions of Senegal for his team to qualify for the semi finals of the ongoing Olympic Games African qualifying tournament in Morocco.

Nigeria walk tightrope in Group A after losing two matches in a row to Morocco and Senegal. But a 2-0 victory over their last group opponents, Algeria and Senegal losing to Morocco in tomorrow’s ties could miraculously see Eguavoen and his team in the semi finals of the championship.

Eguavoen said after his team lost 2-1 to Senegal that the task of qualifying for the semi-finals had become bigger but not impossible. Eguavoen said he would need to psyche up his players and get them to believe that they can still make it through should they win their last match against Algeria and the Senegalese lose to Morocco.

Eguavoen told cafonline.com that “we will approach the game against Algeria with the same aim of winning and salvage some pride, but we also know that should results elsewhere go our way we are still in with a chance. It is not so easy. We need to do a lot of psychological work on the boys, because many of them think that it is all over after this loss but I have to let them know that it’s not over and we can still qualify for the semi-finals. Of course, it doesn’t all depend on us but we have to win our last match first.”

Meanwhile, a member of CAF Media Committee, Nigerian Paul Bassey, has lambasted Coach Eguavoen for giving excuse of non-availability of some foreign-based players for his team’s flop in the ongoing Olympic qualifiers. Speaking on Brila FM early today, Bassey, former publisher of the defunct Today’s Sports said Eguavoen showed his technical incompetency for depending on foreign-based players for a competition he is supposed to have prosecuted with mainly local players.

According to the veteran sports journalist, Nigeria parades a lot of youth players that are eager for national fame, while a good coach should have confidence in tapping from the abundant talents in the local league for a competition of this magnitude.