In your first match against Burundi, you got the three points and now you’re playing Guinea in a do or die game, what is your strategy?
It’s a very important match because now we have three points and if we win this (Guinea) game, we have already qualified for the next round. So, it will be a decisive game for us, more for us that it will be for them, because even if they lose, they have future chance to get qualification and be the best third from the group. My problem at the moment is to recover the injured players, we have two injuries, (Jamilu) Collins and Shehu(Abdullahi) both of them full backs. Now it is a tactical problem for me. Also the team are recovering from physical challenges, some injuries, some had fever some are better now but the best news is that Kalu did a test again in Cairo and it is now 100 per cent sure that he is fit and will be available for the game and he already started training with the team which is good because everyone was scared when this happened. I want to thank the CAF organisation for their swift action when the incident happened so I want to thank them for their response
Will Daniel Akpeyi still be Nigeria’s number one ahead of the match against Guinea?
Yes, what happened is that Akpeyi played the first match because in the three weeks of preparation, he became the number one. I didn’t make this decision alone because I have a very good goalkeeper coach, Alloy (Agu), even my assistant Imama(Amapakabo), who is a former goalkeeper. So, we speak about this problem every day, each time we are together. So, we decided Akpeyi started the game as number one because at first IkechukwuEzenwa had a knee injury in one of the first training sessions in Asaba, so he had to rest and he lost his number one position because of his injury. Akpeyi played the friendlies and did well, so there was no reason to change. Now Ezenwa is back and there is now competition because we agreed that our number three is (Francis) Uzoho. But for the game tomorrow (today), we will have a big decision to make, which one will start the game but I think Daniel Akpeyi kept a clean sheet in the first match and he kept us in the match by stopping very difficult balls.So, I think there is a big argument to keep him as number one. Read more