Eagles face tricky Niger test

Super Eagles

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Festus Abu

Nigeria open their   Rwanda 2016 African Nations Championship campaign against Niger in Kigali on Monday with the Super Eagles looking to prove their title credentials.

The Eagles, who are housed in Group C alongside Tunisia, Niger and Guinea, have yet to win the tournament, which was first played in Ivory Coast in 2009. DR Congo won the competition.

Nigeria did not qualify for the championship for players playing their trade in their football countries’ leagues until the 2014 finals in South Africa. Stephen Keshi guided the Eagles to a third-place finish in the tournament won by Libya.

The Eagles, who missed out on a place in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea, will be under pressure to win Rwanda 2016, and Nigeria coach Sunday Oliseh believes his men are ready for the challenge.

The team arrived in Rwanda in high spirits on Friday ahead of the tournament, which kicked off on Saturday.

According to Oliseh, the team have done enough work at their training camp in Pretoria, South Africa and are set for the tricky tie against minnows Mena,

“The camp mood is very good, right from the beginning the boys have been focused and cohesion among them is great,” Oliseh told Goal.

“We are building a team, our objective is not just about winning the championship, but for the team to get better and also build a solid team.

“If you notice the team, the players are very young and we plan to integrate some of them into the main team for the Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup qualifiers.”

The Tunisia ’94 Africa Cup of Nations winner insists he is not missing any players as the squad boast quality players.

Oliseh said, “The players I love to have in my squad are here in Rwanda, we picked the players that qualified us for the Championship.

“We have quality options in the team, I don’t think we are missing anyone in the team.”

Niger are one of the weakest teams on the continent, with their best result in any international game their 7-1 hammering of Mauritania in the Algiers ’90 Africa Cup of Nations.

The Mena, who are currently 105 in the FIFA rankings, after moving places up the ladder, have only featured in the Africa Cup of Nations twice – 2012 and 2013, crashing out in the group stages. They played for the first time in the 2011 CHAN in Sudan and were dumped out in the knockout stage.

The landlocked country have lost thrice to Nigeria, with the latest being their 2-0 defeat in a friendly affair in Port Harcourt last year.

In the buildup for CHAN, the Mena lost 1-0 to Cameroon and drew 1-1 with Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, Nigeria goalkeeperDavid Obiazor has predicted a difficult match against Niger.

“The Eagles will beat Niger but it will not come on a platter of gold rather as a result of hard work,”Obiozor was quoted by supersport as saying.

“There are many match winners in the team who on a good match day can destroy any opposition.”