COVID-19 Restrictions Block Lagos Fans From Eagles’ Training, Etebo Speaks

The first training session of the Super Eagles at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos was observed on Tuesday with strict COVID-19 regulations put in place by Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), BSNSports.com.ng reports. Although Confederation of African Football (CAF) has given the go-ahead for at least 8,000 fans to turn up for next Tuesday’s last match of the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Lesotho, the NFF decided not to take chances with the commencement of full raining at the same venue. Consequently, a directive went out through the media that only a select few journalists would be allowed in to cover the session, while the gates would be shut against prying eyes of ardent football fans from The Centre of Excellence. Starting at 4:30pm, Eagles’ coach, Gernot Rohr lined out 20 players, following the arrivals of APOEL of Cyprus goalkeeper, Francis Odinaka Uzoho and FC Porto of Portugal left-back, Zaidu Sanusi, with reminders by the NFF that fans should not be allowed to attend the session due to COVID-19 protocols. One of the players that looks good to start for Nigeria on Saturday, Galatasaray of Turkey battling midfielder, Oghenekaro Etebo assured the country’s football fans that the players will go all out for victory in Porto Novo, as they aim to qualify for Cameroon 2022 with a game to spare. He further assured that they will not repeat the mistake that saw them give up a four-goal lead to draw 4-4 with Sierra Leone at Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin City, as all the players know that they will qualify for next year’s AFCON if they get a draw on Saturday. Etebo posited: “I can assure you guys that it is not going to repeat itself again because it’s like a lesson learnt but the most important thing is this game coming up on Saturday. It’s just for us to get a win and then we can come back home to celebrate that we’ve qualified already.”