Nigerian football legend, Chief Adokiye Amiesimaka has warned Rivers United to be prepared for a stiff challenge when they face Rwandan club, Rayon Sports in the second leg of the CAF Confederation Cup playoff tie.
“First, I want to say congratulations to Rivers United FC of Nigeria for an encouraging performance (on Sunday). A 2-0 (result) is as good a scoreline as any. Only 1-0 may turn out to be safe, just as 4-0 may not be safe,” Amiesimaka told supersport.com.
“In this game, any margin is as safe or precarious as you make it. It is possible to lose at home, but win away. It is possible to win at home and also win away.
“It is possible to win at home, but lose away. It is possible to lose, home and away. Each instance has happened before. Any result is possible. To win is simply to make sure you score more goals than you concede,” he said.
“Know your strengths and build on them. Know your weaknesses and strive to prevent your opponents from capitalising on them. In like manner, know your opponents’ strengths and strive to neutralise them, just as you should identify their weaknesses and work to capitalise on them.
“That is what the game is, a contest of wits, whether home or away and as long as refereeing is fair, it shouldn’t make much difference to any solid team with the right attitude whether it is playing home or away,” Amiesimaka said.
The Nigerian club eased to a 2-0 win in the first leg at the Yakubu Gowon Stadium, Port Harcourt on Sunday to put themselves in the box seat for qualification for the group stage of the competition.
Tag: Amiesimaka
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Amiesimaka urges caution
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Keshi‘s sack won’t change anything – Amiesimaka
A former Green Eagles player, Adokie Amiesimaka, on Thursday said the dismissal of Stephen Keshi-led Super Eagles technical crew will not change anything in the team.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Keshi and other members of his technical crew were sacked after beating Sudan 3-1 at the National Stadium Abuja in the 2015 African Nations Cup qualifier on Wednesday.
The win came after Nigeria had lost two of its previous encounters and drew one to reduce its chances of qualifying for the tournament taking place in Morocco next January.
The Nigeria Football Federation had put in place a consortium of coaches led by Shuaibu Amodu to handle the team in its remaining two matches.
“We have had 14 coaches since France 1998, does it mean that we do not have qualified coaches that can transform the team?
“Sacking Keshi and his crew does not change a thing; how do we expect Keshi to perform magic overnight, our problem did not start today.
“At the senior national team level we should have elite players from the local league, but since Clement Westerhof, we have stopped producing players discovered from our league.
“The crop of players we produce these days shows the level of decline of our football,” Amiesimaka told NAN.
The former national team player said the NFF must focus on the development of football at the grassroots in order to halt the current slide in the Super Eagles’ performance.
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Amiesimaka rubbishes Glo Premier League
Former Nigeria international, Adokiye Amiesimaka does not believe there is anything professional about the Globacom Premier League.
Ameisimaka says all clubs in the top tier of Nigerian football are anything but professional and insists it is not “in the best interest of Nigerian football.”
“You cannot have a high-class national team without having a solid league structure. The Nigerian football league went professional in the 1990/1991 season. For the past 23 years, we still do not have a truly professional club in Nigeria.
“Virtually all the professional clubs are owned and sponsored by the government. Commissioners that do not know their left from right are the ones calling the shots and this is not in the best interest of Nigerian football,” Amiesimaka told supersport.com.
The Chief Justice of Nigerian football, as Amiesimaka is called, then took the time to discuss the fortunes of his former club, Sharks who are currently in murky waters of relegation.
“I cannot predict whether or not Sharks will go down. It depends on what they do in their remaining matches and their scorecard at the end of the season,” he said.
Sharks are currently in 19th place in the 20-team table with 27 points from 23 matches.
The Blue Angels face Gombe United at the Sharks Stadium on Sunday.
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Adepoju, Amiesimaka differ on LMC/club owners’ rift
A former official of the Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan on Thursday called on the League Management Company (LMC) and the club owners to resolve the crisis threatening to tear them apart.
Mutiu Adepoju, the former General Manager of 3SC, who was reacting to a deadlocked recent meeting of the two parties, urged them to rather adopt dialogue in resolving the issues.
He told the News Agency Nigeria (NAN) on telephone that the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) could not achieve any visible development with the ongoing rift..
“I think they need to come together and look for a way forward. They should seat in a round table to thrash out all these issues.
“If truly they have the interest of the league at heart, we should not be having problems like this again. They should seat, dialogue and find a way forward,’’ Adepoju said.
Adokiye Amiesimaka, an ex-Green Eagles star player, on the other hand, hailed plans by the LMC at running a credible league but noted that it was nevertheless an illegal body.
He said the LMC, recently constituted by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), was an illegal body and as such, would not be recognised in law.
Amiesimaka explained that LMC’s illegality, stemmed from the fact that the NFF that gave it the mandate, was also an illegal body.
According to him, it is rather the Nigeria Football Association (NFA), that is known in law as the body to run football in the country.
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Eagles have lost class— Amiesimaka
FORMER Nigeria international, Adokiye Amiesimaka has voiced his sentiments following Nigeria’s 2-2 draw against Liberia in a 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Saturday.Nigeria battled back from an early setback to draw 2-2 with the Lone Star at a packed Samuel Kenyon Doe Stadium, Monrovia thanks to goals from Nosa Igiebor and Ikechukwu Uche.
The tie is now evenly poised on a knife edge ahead of the return leg in Nigeria and Amiesimaka believes the Super Eagles are no longer the force they once were.
“Nigeria has lost ‘class’ in football and so can’t show it. Depressing that we can’t be pitted against the likes of Liberia, Sierra Leone, even Madagascar, and have any justifiable expectation of winning at all let alone doing so with relative ease,” Amiesimaka told supersport.com.
The former dashing winger, who was part of the Nigeria team that won the Africa Nations Cup in 1980, decried the country’s failure to churn out quality players as it did in the past.
“For too long we stopped producing players. For much longer we may continue to struggle to beat the weakest teams even in Africa.
“In other words, Nigeria has joined the family of ‘class-less’