Saturday, December 5, 2009
Amodu pleased with 'good' draw
Nigeria coach Shuaibu Amodu described as 'good', the Super Eagles draw for the preliminary stage of next year's FIFA World Cup in South Africa, but admits that things will be tough.
The Eagles will play South American powerhouses Argentina, Korea and Greece in Group B.
A very relaxed Amodu told KickOffNigeria.com immediately after the draw that it was up to him and his team to be prepared to make progress beyond the preliminary stages.
"It is quite a good draw," Amodu said. "As you know, every group is tough, but we must all be prepared for it."
Nigeria have lost to Argentina on the two occasions both sides have met in the World Cup in 1994 and 2002, and beat Greece in 1994 but Amodu says there are no guarantees.
"Obviously, the biggest team on paper is Argentina, but we don’t have to worry. Anybody who is coming to the World Cup must be prepared to face any team and they will all be difficult.
"If you do well and progress to the next round, you may meet them there so it doesnt matter when we play Argentina, we just have to look to our own preparations."
And the Nigeria coach remains confident that the Super Eagles will make it through to the second round.
"Nigeria is one team everybody is looking at to do well, and I believe that we should be able to represent ourselves well and in that group and come out to the second round."
Amodu however, refused to be drawn on how far Nigeria will go.
"Definitely, our ambition is to fight and fight and come out of that group. But the first thing is to think about the group stage and focus on it. If we do that as I think we should, we can then think about how far we can go."
Nigeria Fixtures
Sat Jun 12 (Ellis Park, JHB) : Argentina v Nigeria 1600 (1500 Nigerian time)
Thu Jun 17 (Mangaung): Greece v Nigeria 1600 (1500 Nigerian time)
Tue Jun 22 (Durban): Nigeria v Korea Republic 2030 (1930 Nigerian time)
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