Flying Eagles out to break Ghana jinx

Nigeria’s U-20 team, the Flying Eagles have met with their Ghanaian counterparts; the Black Satellites thrice at the Africa Youth Championship (AYC), losing on the three occasions.

However, today at the Dobsonville Stadium in South Africa by 11.00am (Nigerian time), the John Obuh-led U-20 team will have another chance to break the jinx as they get their AYC campaign off the ground against the defending world and African champions, Ghana. The other teams in the group of death,
Group B, are Cameroun and Gambia.

“We are in good spirits since our arrival here in South Africa,” Obuh said. “We just want to go out there and get the result we came here for. We clashed with Ghana in an invitational tournament last year and I also watched Cameroun play against Egypt in Dubai, so we have gathered some useful information about these teams already,” he added.

Ghana had defeated Nigeria 4-1 in the 2001 AYC group stages, 1-0 in the 1999 final for one of their three titles and 1-0 in 1993 group stage.

Beaming confidence

Despite the intimidating record of the Black Satellites, Terry Envoh, Flying Eagles forward says his teammates are ready for today’s crunch tie.

“We have a team full of quality players who are hungry to make Nigeria proud. We will not disappoint the country” he assured.

“We are unstoppable! There is a great understanding in the team after we trained together for long and we all know that what is expected of us is the cup and nothing less” he said.

Also another Flying Eagles forward, Olanrewaju Kayode, who was a part of the U-17 team in 2009, said he and some of his teammates who could not win the 2009 FIFA Under-17 World Cup right in front of the home crowd, hope to make up with the African trophy in South Africa.

Meanwhile Ghana’s coach, Orlando Wellington also admits that the first game with Nigeria is quite important for his team.

“It’s one game at a time. We can’t think beyond that game. We only have Nigeria to think about for now, Nigeria have a good side, they are very strong. We respect them,” he said.

“We would play to protect our status as champions. Every team we play against would be motivated to beat us but we want to ensure that we keep our title.

“I have enough confidence in my team to challenge for the title again. This present squad can go on to win it,” the Ghana coach boasted.