Sand Eagles Hope To Bounce Back Against Oman

Sand Eagles Hope To Bounce Back Against Oman

Nigeria’s Super Sand Eagles must avoid defeat when they face Oman today if they want to keep their hope of progressing to the next round at the ongoing 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Paraguay alive.

The Super Sand Eagles on Friday night, began their campaign at the 2019 World Cup with an embarrassing 10-1 defeat against Portugal to register the country’s worst ever defeat at any FIFA tournaments.

The defeat was Nigeria’s biggest in Beach Soccer World Cup history since a 12-6 loss to Italy at the 2017 edition in the Bahamas.

Audu Adamu’s side started the match impressively with the former Warri Wolves and Kwara United star Abu Azeez scoring the first goal for Nigeria.

But loss of concentration after scoring the first goal saw the Eagles go on to concede 10 goals with five of the goals scored in the first period.

Nigeria came out aggressively in the third period looking for goals, but they were unable to stop high flying Portuguese side who added another five goals.

Speaking after the game, captain of the team, Abu Azeez, who holds the record of being the youngest ever player in the competition when he debuted as a 15-year-old at the 2009 World Cup in Dubai, admitted that the team lost concentration but hopes that they can bounce back in their next game against Oman.

‘’We lost concentration and the Portuguese are very good because they took advantage of the opportunities that came their way and I want to assure Nigerians that we will work on our mistakes,’’ Azeez stated.

The Super Sand Eagles must now defeat Oman by a healthy margin when they faceoff today at the Los Pynandi Stadium or face the prospect of an early flight home.

Punch