President of the Nigeria Football Federation? (NFF), Aminu Maigari has commended the performance of the Super Eagles which is made up of home-based players against the ‘A’ team of Angola in an international friendly in Abuja on Wednesday. “I believe that for the first time in a long time, Nigerians were afforded the opportunity to see what the home boys are capable of doing. Hitherto, they had always been used as training materials and the foreign based players would come a few days to a match and snatch the shirts. Now, the NFF has decided that everything would have to be on merit. We are delighted to have a new head coach who supports the vision of the administration and is ready for the hard work that is needed to get there.”
He promised that Keshi will get more support from the NFF to help him succeed. “Mr. Keshi will get all the support that is necessary from the NFF for the continued camping of the home boys, and we will ensure that friendly matches are available to expose the team and give the players experience and confidence”, said Maigari.
The home boys, playing their first international after four weeks of camping in Abuja, which included the yuletide period, stood firm against the ‘A’ team of Angola, which is heading to the 2012 African Cup of Nations finals in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, at the National Stadium, Abuja.
Maigari continued: “Already, we are reaching out to some state governments to help with the camping programme of the team. There have been a couple of positive responses and we will move the team to any of the states that is ready, once the team returns from Liberia. You can recall that this is the same way that Mr. Clemens Westerhorf started his building of the team that qualified Nigeria for her first FIFA World Cup finals, won the African Cup of Nations finals in 1994 and impressed at the World Cup finals. The bulk of that team eventually won the Olympic football gold for Nigeria at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, USA – the first for Africa”, stated Maigari.
The Super Eagles will depart for Monrovia today for the international friendly with the Lone Star of Liberia on Sunday evening before the team returns on Monday.