Captain of the Super Eagles of Nigeria Ahmed Musa has stated that the team will show their quality against Sao Tome and Principe in their upcoming qualifiers match.
The race to the 2023 African Cup of Nations has begun and Group A is about to wrap up their first round of games before the international break is finally over.
Nigeria will travel to Marrakech, Morocco to take on Sao Tome and Principe, who got into the group after winning an appeal against Mauritius. The Falcons and True Parrots of Sao Tome and Principe will be hoping to cause an upset and make it into the tournament for the first time in their history.
Super Eagles favourites to progress
Nigeria, meanwhile, are favourites to make it out of the group and go straight into the tournament but the Super Eagles also have a history of inconsistency which has seen them miss out on tournaments when they were expected to qualify.
Their match against Sierra Leone ended in their favour but it also showed how much work they had to do. Team captain Musa has now come out to claim that the poor state of the pitch at Abuja was responsible for their below-average showing against Sierra Leone and that they will show their quality against Sao Tome in Morocco.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Musa said: “We want to win against Sao Tome and Principe. But definitely, we have to play good football like the coach always wants.
“And as you can see, we have a very good pitch here (in Morocco) so you will see a very different Super Eagles tomorrow.”
Cause of poor national stadium surface revealed
Meanwhile, the poor state of the recently renovated Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja, which was billed to be the home ground of the Super Eagles, led to calls for explanation from fans and journalists alike.
The lush green surface which hosted the ill-fated World Cup qualifier game between Nigeria and Ghana back in March has devolved into nothingness, which did not allow both teams to enjoy their football.
It has now been revealed that the company in charge of the maintenance lacked the necessary pitch equipment for the job.
A source at the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) revealed to journalists that the country's football governing body is not in charge of pitch maintenance. He stated that the Federal Ministry for Youth and Sports are in charge, and they contracted the job to a company that did not have the necessary equipment for pitch maintenance.
The source also claimed that the company did what they could to prepare the pitch for the game against Sierra Leone but that there was no supervision from either body until matchday when they could not organize an alternative venue.
This article was most recently revised and updated 2 years ago