As the Super Eagles of Nigeria gear up to face Sao Tome and Principe in tomorrow’s 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers, the Nigerian team have been warned not to take the team from the island for granted.

While Nigeria started their campaign on a high edging Sierra Leone 2-1 in Abuja, Sao Tome and Principe coached by Adriano Eusébio and nicknamed  Falcão e Papagaio were thrashed 5-1 by Guinea Bissau.

The results leaves them bottom of the group but ahead of their second game, team’s influential midfielder Jokceleny Carvalho “Iniesta” told local publication Nation that they are not in anyway going to make it easy for Nigeria.

” We want to win. Yes and we can do it to create one of the shocks of the qualifiers. We scored first in our first game but lose heavily. The lessons learnt from that game will be of great use for us against Nigeria. Who are the better team but we fancy our chances”, he concluded.

An explanation on why the recently renovated Moshood Abiola Stadium was an eyesore during the Super Eagles 2-1 win over Sierra Leone has been revealed to OwnGoalNigeria.com.

The pitch has gone from the lush green surface that hosted the Super Eagles in the ill fated 1-1 draw against Ghana in the World Cup playoff in March to one littered with patches and mud.

So bad was the surface that the players of the senior national team of Nigeria struggled to express themselves on it. Something that led to inquests on how the pitch became so bad in such a short period of time.

Explaining, a source at the ministry said it is not the fault of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as they are not privy to the maintenance of the stadium rather it was contracted to a firm for maintenance by the ministry of youth and sports.

He said the company handling the maintenance are short of key equipments needed like water sprinkler which is the commonest and most important in pitch maintenance. He said they were renting the one they used prior to the game against Ghana.

Since then they have reverted to manual watering of the pitch which doesn’t have same effect and also makes the pitch to be water logged. Again no one from the ministry took time to supervise the job until three days to the game against Sierra Leone.

The minister for youth and sports summoned the maintenance firm and gave them a deadline to ensure that the pitch returns to its original state before the Super Eagles next game in September.

Genk of Belgium forward Cyriel Dessers says he understands that Napoli forward Victor Osimhen is for now the main striker for the senior national team of Nigeria.

Dessers played in back to back friendly games for Nigeria against Mexico and Ecuador respectively but was an unused substitute on Thursday when they defeated Sierra Leone 2-1 in the first game of the AFCON 2023 qualifiers.

He was asked if he was disappointed not to get a look in considering that he scored Nigeria’s lone goal during the two friendly games in the United States of America which was in the 1-2 loss to Mexico, Dessers said he understands that Osimhen is ahead of him in the national team.

“Victor Osimhen is still the number 1. But in the US he was not there and I got my chance, along with Terem Moffi. It’s a shame we lost those games, but I showed something. Hopefully I’ll be in the squad this week”, he said while looking ahead of tomorrow’s game against Sao Tome and Principe.

In a separate interview he was asked if he feels he should have waited for a call up to the Belgium team who are now in dire need of options in attack. The top scorer in the Europa Conference League with ten goals said when he got the call up to the Nigerian team he didn’t have any doubt in accepting it.

“When the invitation from Nigeria came, I had no doubts. It was a huge honour. In any case, I am someone who stands behind his choices and I do that now. If you have to wait for a possible selection at the Red Devils, then you may have nothing at all,” Dessers starts told Dutch media De Telegraaf .

Scorer of Nigeria’s first goal the WAFU Under-17 championship Emmanuel Michael has explained why he dedicated his man of the match award to Super Eagles ace Moses Simon.

Michael opened scoring with a sublime freekick from over 30 yards to set Nigeria on the road towards beating host Ghana 4-2 in the first game of the tournament.

He was subsequently awarded the man of the match award which he said he is dedicating to Simon, whose wife owns the academy that he plays for Simoiben Academy.

Explaining he said he is dedicating the award to the Nantes star as he is the brain behind his current status. He also said the boot he used in scoring the goal was gifted to him by Simon. Same boots he used at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon in January.

“This award is dedicated to my mentor Moses Simon, he is the brain behind my current status and he gave me a chance to live my dreams by enrolling me into his academy”, Michael said at the post match.

“The boot I used in playing against Ghana was the boot Moses Simon used at AFCON in Cameroon. He gave me the boot and I decided not to use the boot till God saw me through the U-17 screening and I used it in the first match, which I played well and got this award”, he stated.

Head coach of the senior national team of Sierra Leone John Kester says his team were unlucky not to beat Nigeria in their first game of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in Abuja.

Kester saw his team took an early lead against Nigeria but were eventually beaten 2-1 by Nigeria. He said it was disappointing as they came to Nigeria to be competitive and at least get a win.

“Our goal was to come here and be competitive and to be honest I thought with the group of young players that we had, we deserved something out of the game today. That’s no disrespect to Nigeria at all. I just felt we deserved something”, he explained.

“But then again, the performance will give us alot more confidence going into our next match and that’s very important,” he stated.

He said the performance against Nigeria has raised the hope of his boys that they can get a result against Guinea Bissau and also motivate Sao Tome and Principe to go all out against Nigeria in the other group game.

“Coming into Nigeria and putting in a performance like this, where we felt we could have gotten something out of it was very impressive. So, for us it is progress as it takes us into the next match as well where we know we hopefully are going to get a result.

“But, for me, even though this was not the result we wanted, the performance which we thought deserved something is credit to my players. I think they have come here and showcased what we are about and want to achieve going forward,” he said.

He noted that they would go back to the drawing board and correct their mistakes, stressing that such errors were bound to occur, especially with a young team in a transitional period.

“Again, when you talk about bringing young players through a transition period, there is an element always once in a while of loss of concentration.

“We scored the early goal but took our eyes off the ball a little bit at some point and allowed Nigeria back into the game.

“I think that was the turning point for us, but again we had a second goal scoring opportunity and if that had gone in, it could have been a different game.

“But of course, we will take alot of positives from the performance going forward.,” he concluded.

The Nigeria U17 team started their campaign at the WAFU B Championship with a comprehensive 4-1 thrashing of host Ghana in the opening game of the tournament.

Michael Emmanuel set the tone for the win with a sublime freekick from range to put the Nduka Ugbade led boys into the lead very early into the game. The Simoiben Academy prospect bent the ball from around 30 yards out.

Team’s top striker and top scorer during their camping in Abuja Precious William put the Nigerians two goals up by reacting first to a loose ball spilled by the goalkepper of Ghana.

Jubril Azeez benefitted from some terrible goalkepping by the shot stopper of Ghana to kill any hope of a late charge by the host although they immediately pulled one back through Abdul Razak Salifu to bring scores to 1-3.

Substitute Light Ike restored Nigeria’s lead with a smart finish from a well worked corner kick leaving Ghana with a mountain to climb with around ten minutes left to play in the game. Ghana however put some respect to the tally with another goal via the spot.

Moment of hesitation in the Nigerian box gifted Ghana a penalty which Collins Agyemang converted with ease, a little to late for Ghana as Nigeria clinched a comprehensive win.

Michael Emmanuel was subsequently voted the man of the match. Nigeria’s next game is on Tuesday against Togo.

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The captain of the senior national team of Sierra Leone Steven Caulker says he is confident that his team will beat Nigeria when they host the Super Eagles at their home ground.

Caulker was a part of the team who were beaten 2-1 by Nigeria depsite taking the lead in the game. Nigeria rallied back to win the tie thanks to goals from Alex Iwobi and Victor Osimhen.

Sierra Leone however gave a good account of themselves and it is why Caulker says he is optimistic of their chances when they host Nigeria in the return leg of this fixture.

“I am very optimistic about our chances as we await the return leg of this fixture on home soil because we held our own during large part of the game. We defenitely got some areas to improve on, but like the coach said we are in a period of transition with a young team”, he said at the post match conference.

“We felt while we were 1-0 up we sat back and gave Nigeria too much respect and allowed them back into the game,” he said.

He went further to suggest that officiating was slightly in favour of Nigeria as the home team saying when they host Nigeria and get better officiating they will beat the Nigerian team.

“It’s just one game and we still have five more to play even though we felt that there were a few decisions that on another day could have hopefully gone our way.

“We’d like to think that when we host Nigeria we will have these kind of decisions go our way and hopefully win the game.

“These decisions change games and I think we were a little unfortunate today as it could have been a different result. But kudos to Nigeria, they did well and have taken all three points which is a very good way to start”, he rounded up.

The decision to substitute Almeria striker Sadiq Umar in the Super Eagles 2-1 win over Sierra Leone has been explained by coach of the Nigerian team Jose Peseiro.

Peseiro subbed the lanky striker just before the start of second half despite the fact that he was one of the stand out performers for Nigeria in the first half.

Sadiq’s substitution for a midfielder in Oghenekaro Etebo was explained by Peseiro who said Sadiq did very well but he had to change tactics hence the decision to take him off.

“In the second half, when I substituted Sadiq (Umar) for (Oghenekaro) Etebo, you could see that we controlled more of the game. However, the visitors looked fresher in the last ten minutes and pushed us, but we were able to hold on for the win”, he said at the presser witnessed by OwnGoalNigeria.com.

He insisted that although his team should have played better they were however the better side and deserve to win the game.

“So, I think we were the better side and deserved to win the match, but we can improve and play much better because we have the quality and ability to do so,” he stated.