Joseph Yobo

 

'Champion' Eagles look for fresh start

'Champion' Eagles look for fresh start

Posted: 2011-03-27 10:19

Samson Siasia's Super Eagles will march out into the turf of the Abuja National Stadium on Sunday night looking for definition from their past when they face Ethiopia.

Where the first objective will be to make a break from the performances of the recent past, the second will be to return to the swashbuckling attacking of the nostalgic '90s.

On Friday, Siasia made a bold claim, that the 'old Eagles' are gone and his current set of players are a 'new Eagles'.

"The old Super Eagles is gone. This is a new Super Eagles. The boys are doing what they have been asked to do," he said.

This, despite playing just one friendly game against Sierra Leone last month.

But the Super Eagles coach has a point. Of the 22 players in his squad, only seven were at last year's disastrous World Cup in South Africa.

Siasia was the unanimous choice to bring change to a stilted national team that had left fans disenchanted after what was generally seen as a recurring string of poor performances.

And so he has had. The squad has been culled drastically. Young players have been called in and some outstanding performers have emerged, led by Inter Milan's Joel Obi.

The team made a winning, if unconvincing, start to life under Siasia with a 2-1 win against Sierra Leone in February, a game where they were booed by the fans at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos, but skipper Joseph Yobo says there were extenuating circumstances.

"There was a positive attitude against Sierra Leone. We only trained for one day, but we could have won by 3-0 in the first half," he says.

There can be no such let off against Ethiopia. The Eagles have had five full days of training, and look to have built a good rhythm. Injured players Victor Anichebe, Osaze Odemwingie and Obafemi Martins have been passed fit, so except for Victor Moses, who is ineligible with his application for nationality under processing at Fifa, Siasia has a full squad to pick from.

He and his skipper expect nothing less than a win.

"We are condemned to win. There is no question, and to win big because there is a bit of goal difference now between us and Guinea, so we have to make sure we score as many goals as we can," Siasia said earlier in the week.

While that may sound like the words of a man underrating the opposition, that is certainly not the case, as forward Martins points out.

"The coach has told us that we all have to fall back and defend when we lose the ball, and make sure we play this game like we are playing Brazil or Argentina.

"We are not going to look at them like they are a small team, because there is no small team. We just have to respect them and play a disciplined game," Martins says.

Siasia's penchant for attacking football is no secret, and after having had a reasonably long time with his wards, the former striker is convinced they will do th business.

"These boys will play like champions," Siasia claimed.

That is what the fans want to see.