Eagles Fly To Freetown On Monday, Make Return To Abuja Following Day

Although the Eagles went into Friday’s first leg at Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City with a 4-1 lead, the three-time African champions surprisingly surrendered their hefty advantage and could only settle with shared points with their less-esteemed visitors.

It now means there will be everything to play for in Tuesday’s reverse fixture at Siaka Stevens Stadium in Freetown, where Gernot Rohr’s squad will aim to right all wrongs they committed on Friday, in order to put their qualification hopes back on track.

Had they won in Benin and get another win this Tuesday in the Sierra Leonean capital, it would have been smooth sailing all the way to Cameroon 2021, as the Nigerian squad still top Group L of the qualifiers, having won their first two matches against Benin Republic and Lesotho.

A statement by the communications department of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) revealed that the Eagles’ delegation for the return match in Freetown will travel aboard a chartered flight to the Sierra Leonean capital on Monday, and fly back to Abuja right after Tuesday’s game.

In a frantic bid to get a better result on Tuesday, NFF president, Melvin Amaju Pinnick quickly summoned a meeting with the Eagles’ technical crew for Saturday morning; while also charging the players to put the disappointment behind them and be ready to give their all in order to redeem their image in Freetown.

Despite the implosion suffered by the squad in the second half of Friday’s first leg, skipper of the side, Ahmed Musa insisted that the Eagles are medically, physically, mentally, psychologically and fit, hence his belief that they will overcome The Leone Stars this time.

The former Al-Nassr of Saudi Arabia attacker, who was replaced by Kelechi Iheanacho in the 71st minute, apologised to Nigerians for the poor ending to the encounter: “This has been a real shocker. I want to, on behalf of the entire team, apologise to the generality of Nigerians for this poor result. We will go to Freetown and do the needful.”

Musa also reckoned that the ability of each of the Nigerian players to get negative results from their mandatory COVID-19 tests confirmed that the Eagles are in top shape to get back on track in the 2021 AFCON qualification series.

The squad is bound to get another round of COVID-19 tests for the fourth time in a month, after earlier checks and negative results ahead of international friendly matches against Algeria and Tunisia in Austria as well as Friday’s game, following which Musa said: “This is great news.”

In the same vein, a former midfielder in the squad, John Ugochukwu Ogu (Suker) took to social media to wish the Eagles better luck in Tuesday’s second leg, ahead of which he tweeted: “I enjoyed the first half of the game. We played with great intensity and discipline. Super Eagles. I trust the game in Freetown will be much better . We Meuveee!!!!”