A former youth national team defender, Loveday Omoruyi has warned that the current Flying Eagles’ squad will struggle against tactically better countries at this year’s African U20 Cup of Nations in Egypt.
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Sports247 gathered that the Nigerian under-20 team, which is currently coached by Aliyu Zubairu from El-Kanemi Warriors FC of Maiduguri, will travel out to Egypt this weekend for the last lap of their preparations for the competition that starts on April 27th, but Loveday Omoruyi believes the trip is rather late in coming.
The outspoken Omoruyi, who starred for Julius Berger FC of Lagos during his heyday, reckoned further that the Flying Eagles will struggle in Egypt, because he believes their build-up has not been good enough.
With the Flying Eagles already grouped against Tunisia, Kenya and Morocco at the forthcoming continetal youth championship that serves as qualifiers for the FIFA U20 World Cup, Omoruyi went on to warn that Zubairu’s side will find things difficult against technically superior North African teams.
He conjectured: “We have to be honest, tactically and technically, they are better, but physically we are better. The truth is that your level of preparation for every tournament determines how far you will go.
“Don’t be surprised to learn that they have been preparing for the past two years for this tournament. I can bet that we here in Nigeria were still looking at who we were going to invite when the North Africans must have travelled to various places to have friendly games.”
Omoruyi also lambasted what he called Nigeria’s perennial style of waiting till the 12th hour before embarking on serious preparations for major competitions and expressed apprehension that the under-20 squad might face the same scenario of permutations that the senior squad, Super Eagles, are currently going through in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
“The preparation matters, but we always wait till the final minute, and we’ll then start doing the fire brigade approach; or we’ll be praying for one team to lose so that we can qualify.
“Look at the senior team, for example, our prayer now is for South Africa or another team to lose so we can qualify. It’s not supposed to be like that,” Omoruyi retorted satirically.
