‘Nigeria ready for England’

Posted by admin Headlines Monday, August 8th, 2011

Both players and officials of Nigeria’s Flying Eagles have predicted England will fall to them in the second round of the U20 World Cup.

The Flying Eagles laboured to a 2-0 victory over Saudi Arabia to finish winners of Group D with the maximum nine points from three matches on Saturday night at the Estadio Monumental Hernan Ramirez Villegas in Pereira, Colombia.

The winners of the Nigeria versus England tie will battle the winners between Ecuador and France in the quarter-final.

“Our focus is now on the England game on Wednesday. As much as we respect all the teams left in this tournament, we hope to win to qualify for the quarterfinal,” said coach John Obuh after his side defeated Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

England are in Colombia without several of their top stars from the English Premier League following the refusal of their clubs to release them for the competition.

Despite these absentees, England have held their own with three scoreless draws in a strong group that also had Mexico and Argentina.

Both Ahmed Musa and Olanrewaju Kayode were on target for Nigeria against the Saudis to take their personal tallies at Colombia 2011 to three goals each.

“We have a great team and we remain on track to becoming world champions after we beat the best in Africa,” said Musa.

Asec Mimosas striker Kayode dusted himself from a horrific second-half tackle that saw him pass out for a few terrifying seconds to score his third goal of the U-20 World Cup.

“This is a very important tournament for my career because we will win the World Cup,” Kayode said.

“I’m very focussed at this competition after my poor performance at the U-17 World Cup two years ago. This time I’m ready.

“After this World Cup, I believe I will be playing in Europe, where I would prefer to play in either England or France.”

Obuh praised Kayode for brining urgency and purpose to the team.

“We were slow tactically and the players were indifferent today (Saturday), but the changes we made brought life to the attack and that helped us to win the game.”

Saudi coach, Khalid Alkoroni, lamented his team’s poor finishing.

“We had a great chance late in the first half, but we could not convert it. Nigeria got theirs almost immediately and they took it,” said Alkoroni, whose players did not observe the Ramadan fasting as it was “bought” for them by their football federation.

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