Niger Battle Eagles’ Foes

The Mena of Niger will take on Nigeria’s first round foes Ethiopia and Burkina Faso as part of their build-up for next year’s Nations Cup.

Niger technical director Garba Lawali told MTNFootball.com that the Mena will tackle Ethiopia on 30 December in Addis Ababa and on January 10 they will do battle with Burkina Faso in Rustenburg.

Niger, who are drawn in Group D along with Ghana, Mali and DR Congo, will fly out to Ethiopia on December 28, a day after they have opened a training camp in Niamey.

They will then return to take on Togo on January 5 and three days later head directly to South Africa ahead of their warm-up game against Burkina Faso.

Incidentally, Nigeria turned down a request by next-door neighbours Niger for a warm-up game ahead of the Nations Cup.

Lawali disclosed that their final warm-up game will be against either high-riding PSL side Platinum Stars or a Port Elizabeth selected side on 15 January.

This will be five days before their opening Group D match against Mali in Port Elizabeth.

“We will prepare better than we did for the 2012 Nations Cup and so we expect better results this time around,” said Lawali, who only recently returned with the country’s U20 team from an invitational tournament in Algeria.

The Junior Mena lost their three matches in Algeria – they lost 2-0 to Algeria and also lost to Egypt twice, 1-0 and 2-0.