Nigeria Super Eagles draw with Ghana Black Stars

Under fire Super Eagles coach, Samson Siasia expressed his delight with the way his team played in a goalless draw with the Black Stars of Ghana in their international friendly match, which held at Vicarage Road, Watford.

Only 72 hours earlier, fans had been baying for his and his players’ blood following the 2-2 draw the Eagles had played with the Syli Stars of Guinea at the Abuja National Stadium, which ended Nigeria’s Nations Cup 2012 dream.

“I’m delighted with the way they (Eagles) played especially after what happened over the weekend. I only hope that fans also saw the improvement. We’re building a team for the future,” said Siasia.

Commenting further, the former Nigerian international also said he felt his team had created the better chances to have broken the deadlock.

Although the match did end goalless one must commend the work the officials did on the players to ensure that they did not allow what happened in Abuja over the weekend to have drastically affected their game.

Instead after an initial wobbly start in which the Ghanaians had the bulk of the ball possession, the Super Eagles came back stronger in the second half and fashioned out a number of scoring chances.

Although the ground of Championship side, Watford was not filled a sizeable crowd did show up to enjoy a fairly decent show put on by both teams

On his part, Goran Stevanovic, Siasia’s opposite number, also believed that his players did well but refused to be drawn into specifics until later when he would have studied the match.

But the 45-year-old Serbian flatly refused to be drawn into the chances of the Black Stars at next year’s Nations Cup final when asked after the game.

However, Siasia will be the more relieved of the two because his current tenuous position as national team head coach would have become untenable had the Eagles followed up Saturday’s poor outing with defeat to West African rivals, the Black Stars.

But in spite of the slightly improved performance of his team, Siasia is scheduled to know his fate on Thursday when the Technical Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) meet in Abuja.

This Day

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