BY JOE APU
Head Coach of the Nigeria U-23 national team, Samson Siasia has admitted that his players lacked fitness and that he would have to put them on their toes to get the team ready for the Rio 2016 football event.
The coach who won a silver medal for Nigeria in Beijing 2008 when the Nigerian side lost to Argentina stated further that the two loses to Korea and Denmark has opened his eyes to the many flaws in the team noting that the Dream Team has learnt a lot from the 4 -Nation Suwon Invitational Tournament in Korea Republic, after his boys ended the invitational with a 3-1 defeat of Honduras on Monday.
Speaking at the post match press conference, Siasia said the experience in Korea was overwhelming.
“I’m happy we are not going back home pointless. The most important thing is that team officials and the players have learnt a lot from this tournament which we will take back home to start making our corrections.
“The best thing that has happened to this team is that due to results at this tournament, we have heard Nigerians criticising us, we thank them for all the negative things they have been saying about us. These have served as motivation for us, we have realised the areas that we need to improve on and those players that we need to inject into the team to make up a very strong team going to the Olympics.”
Siasia added: “The biggest problem we are having right now is that we do not defend very well; we create several chances but do not convert them. So, we need to make changes in those areas for us to move ahead from here, we have other games coming up too in America. After making those changes we will see how well the team will look going to the Olympics.
“I don’t see any plus right now, I only saw players that are not fit enough, that’s the biggest problem we had. The change of weather actually affected the few ones that we trusted to play well, most of them faltered, so that’s a problem, and we need to address these things in a hurry.”
Coach Siasia disclosed that he has a number of players in mind to fortify the team, but he will not disclose their names now, because he has not been able to confirm if they will be available for the Games.
The Nigeria U-23 finished third at the 4 -Nation Tournament after beating Honduras 3-1 in their last game on Monday. Honduras went ahead in the 17th minute through Alberth Elis while the Dream Team came into the game in the second half, scoring the equalizer in the 61st minute through captain Azubuike Okechukwu. Godwin Saviour increased the tally in the 69 minute from the penalty spot and in the 87th minute, Saturday Keigho made it three with a beauty of a goal with a shot taken from his the Nigerian half of the pitch.