A member of the Super Eagles squad to the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations has pointed out the main difference in the present team and their team that conquered the African continent 11 years ago, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Nigeria will return to action this weekend with the AFCON qualifiers game against Benin Republic in Uyo on Saturday followed quickly by the second game in the same series against Rwanda away in Kigali three days later.
Ahead of the game, the team has been compared to the 2013 set by the top striker of the Stephen Keshi led team in Brown Ideye , who says the present team has more talented players than they did back then but lack the heart to fight unlike theirs.
“Yes. This current team has more talented players on paper than our team in 2013 but, do not have the heart we had”, he said in a chat made available to us by SportsBoom.
Explaining further he stated: “If you check our lineup back then, from the goalkeeper to Emenike, apart from Victor Moses, Mikel Obi, both at Chelsea and Vincent Enyeama at Lille, there were no well-known stars in the side playing consistently for their clubs back then.
“Even some were club less or playing in the Nigerian Topflight.
“Onazi was in Lazio but, wasn’t a starter”
“Unlike what they have now, you have Ademola Lookman (Atalanta), Victor Osimhen, for Napoli, Iwobi, Bassey (Fulham), Ajayi, Ola Aina, even Zaidu Sanusi (Porto) apart from the goalkeeper, almost all the players are all in the elite league, with most in the EPL.
“The team was totally different from this team.”
He also spoke about another key aspect of the AFCON 2013 winning team of the Super Eagles, which is discipline and support among the players, something he feels is missing in this present team.
“We supported one another; we left whatever dispute we had on the field there and moved on off it after the game.”
“We talked to one another, go to each other’s rooms, we encouraged ourselves and never criticized ourselves. Discipline in camp was paramount as everyone tried to stay in line.”
“If he said bedtime was 8 pm and there was to be no noise afterwards, that was how it was going to be.”
“For me, I feel the discipline in the team gave us the trophy”.
