Ahead of the 2024 African Cup Of Nations (AFCON), Super Eagles of Nigeria coach, Jose Peseiro has issued a stern warning to his players that there’s no excuse not to give 100% in the tournament.
Peseiro who issued the warning shortly after the first team training on Wednesday night in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire said AFCON is a tough competition, but the team is 100% focused on the first game against Equatorial Guinea and they cannot afford to make mistakes in the tournament.
He said, “We cannot use the weather as an excuse, we need to put our Focus on and understand that, adapt well and do our best with the weather, hot humidity, don’t care about the weather, we only want to put the focus on the first match, it’s important for us.”
“Short tournament is that difficult tournament, hard tournament, Guinea Equatorial did better than us last AFCON and it’s a good team, but you want to win, you want to put 100% focus on everybody.
“No one in the training, meals, rest, meetings, all activities, we must put all our maximum focus because we cannot make mistakes in our next match, we have done a collective game to win our first match and it’s important for us.
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“The first training was frustrating due to the long trip, we did hydration training. No tactics training, no conditional training, only hydration training,” he noted.
Peseiro also shared fitness news on Terem Moffi and Kelechi Iheanacho who were called up to the squad after Bayern Leverkusen striker, Victor Boniface was ruled out of the tournament with groin injury.
He said, “Moffi likes 14 because he plays with the team and Kelechi Iheanacho, he had contact with the medical staff, the staff and all the players and there, he’s working there for recovery and we have confidence in them.”
However, after losing 2-0 against Guinea in a friendly game on Monday afternoon, the team will be hoping to claim all three points in their AFCON opening match against Equatorial Guinea on Sunday afternoon by 3 pm at the Olympic Stadium of Ebimpé.