Former Super Eagles winger, Emmanuel Amuneke has sent a warning to the youth national team, Flying Eagles to play collectively, if they are to beat Mali in Wednesday’s semi-final of the African U-20 Cup of Nations in Niger Republic, sports247.ng reports.
The 1994 Africa Footballer of The year, who is now Tanzania’s national team coach and is in Niger Republic as a member of CAF’s technical study group at the ongoing championship, stressed that team work is the key.
Amuneke, who is an Africa Cup of Nations winner, Olympic Games gold medalist and two-time FIFA World Cup participant, added at Stade Seyni Kountche that Nigeria will have to do better than their last match.
In that encounter on Friday, against the host country, the Flying Eagles struggled for form and had to rely on a 72nd minute direct free-kick from Ibrahim Alhassan to carry the day.
Some 24 hours later, Hadji Drame’s second half goal for Mali set up their semi final clash with Nigeria, while eliminating 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup champions Ghana.
The Nigeria/Mali clash, as playback of their WAFU U-20 Cup of Nations clash at same level in December, will hold on Wednesday, 13th February at Stade General Seyni Kountche.
While Ghana needed only a draw to qualify for the semi finals as a result of having no goal deficit, the Malians, needing an outright win to qualify, showed greater desire and passion on the ball from the beginning.
Boubacar Traore, El Bilal Toure and Mamadou Traore combined well up front against Ghana, who relied on Mohamed Kudus, Enoch Atta Agyei and Emmanuel Kumah to impose themselves on the game.
However, the Malians held firm at the rear while launching occasional forays upfront, and always looked the most likely to get a goal with their counter-attacking approach, which Amuneke says will be a thorn in the flesh for Nigeria in midweek.
The Flying Eagles’ players, technical crew and officials, who reached the semi finals and FIFA U20 World Cup on Friday with a 1-0 victory over Niger Republic, were in the stands to watch Ghana lose to Mali, who lost their opening game 2-0 to Senegal.
Mali, though, then defeated Burkina Faso by a lone goal in Maradi and their victory over Ghana shot them to the last four, plus a ticket to the FIFA U20 World Cup in Poland.
After Nigeria and Mali settle old scores, the second semi final, which will hold in Maradi on same day, is between Senegal and South Africa.
Amuneke shot a look ahead of both games and advised the Flying Eagles to emphasize more on playing as a team, instead of displaying individual brilliance, as he sees a very tricky semi final clash with the Malians.
He added: “Our players have to do more of team work. The semi final match against Mali would be explosive and would be an interesting one.
“But if we play as a team rather than players doing their individual thing, we would come out on top.”
