Nigeria’s Dream Team battle Egypt today, Kick off 6.45pm

Wednesday, December 2, 2015 1:17 pm

Nigeria’s Dream Team: war against Egypt today

Nigeria’s Dream Team VI second game in the U-23 African Nations Cup will come today at the Caroline Faye Stadium, M’Bour. On the other side are the junior Pharaohs from Egypt.

Kick off will be 6.45pm Nigerian time after the clash between Algeria and Mali, who will start their match at 3pm GMT. The centre referee will be Cameroon’s Antoine Max Depadoux Effa Essouma. He will be assisted by Olivier Safari Kabene from Congo and Issa Yaya from Chad.

In a pre-match conference Tuesday Coach Samson Siasia said his players cannot afford to give out free gifts, like Santa Claus to the Egyptians when they play the second group game today.

“We almost got ‘killed’ in our first game against Mali, and we have to do more against Egypt. It will be a difficult game. Our strength is scoring but defensively we are shaky. We cannot repeat the same mistakes against Egypt. We know how to play and will use our strength to the best of our abilities. It is very important we win this game, because victory will take us into the next round,” Siasia was quoted to have said on CAF Online.

Siasia gives pep talks to his boys: No more Father Xmas, he says

According to Siasia, “We were damn lucky in our first game against Mali, after watching that game again, all I can say is that this is not Christmas yet and as such my players can not give out free gifts, because if we do that against an organised side like Egypt who are good in set pieces, then we are finished”

“Our target tomorrow(today) is to go all out and attack, attack, attack, because that is our strong point, then we will work on our defence line, so that we don’t give out cheap and easy passes to our opponents“

Expressing satisfaction with the performance of his team despite conceding two second half goals, the U-23 gaffer said what is uppermost was that they won the game and got the 3 points, and that a win against Egypt will put the team in the semi final, so they have to work very hard.

On whether he will‎ use Chile U-17 top scorer Victor Osimhen in the competition, coach Siasia had this to say “the young man is in my plans, when the right time comes I will introduce him, he has a lot of potentials that I can tell you, but we need to wait for the right time, he is a part of this team.

*Sourced partly from www.thenff.com