The coach of Nigeria Flying Eagles, Zubair Aliyu has attributed the team success at the 2024 WAFU B championship to the ability of the boys to overcome the slow start they had in the competition as they improved with every match, Sports247 reports.
In an exclusive chat with Sports247, Coach Zubair said the loss to Burkina Faso in the group B opening match weighed the boys but they were able to get back to reality to pull great results against Cote d’ivoire and Niger while showing improvement per match.
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” We started very slowly in our first game against Burkina Faso we lost which ordinarily almost weighed the players done with a lot of side talk and motivation, they were able to put themselves together and eventually we beat Cote d’ivoire”, said Zubair.
He considered the slow start as good omen which propelled the team to the final, the coach speaks further on the slow start of the team
” The good about this tournament is that we improve with every match and that is how a team should stabilise in tournaments. It’s not good for a team to start explosively and start struggling after that.x
” The first match was not too good , the second match we scored two and conceded one and in the third match we scored three goals and conceded one which shows improvement and I believe in the final we are going to be better.*
The Flying Eagles, the defending champion of the competition will face the Black Satellite of Ghana in the final on Wednesday, and encounter many analyst believe will be explovsie due to the firece rivalry between the two West Africa football giants.
Coach Zubair gave assurances that the boys are aware of the rivalry between the two sides and the team is ready to defend the title.
” Black satellite of Ghana as everybody knows that they are our arch rival at any level, that rivalry is there and this one is not going to be an exception.”
” The boys themselves know the importance of the match and the rivalry between Nigeria and Ghana and what is important for us, our players, to understand is that our boys know that we are the defending champion and we want to defend the trophy.” Zubair explained
