Call it the spirit of the Nigerian player, or the zeal to be among the best you will not be far from the truth, as players of the national U-23 men’s football team, Dream Team VI, Monday morning defied the chilling cold harmatan weather in Abuja to commence the team’s build up for its first game against Gabon next month.
Even though some of them jokingly asked each other who put on the A/C as they came out of their room to face the cold weather, they were not deterred. As as early as 5.30 am coach Samson Siasia and his back room staff were already by the team’s bus waiting for the players, this attitude showed the boys were in for serious business.
On getting to the practice pitch of the Abuja national stadium, the players had a first hand feel of what to come as the tartan track became their battle ground as the coaches wanted to see how fit they were, and trust the players they did not disappoint as they took all the physical exercise dished at them by the coaches in their strides.
This they did for an hour before the session was called off by coach Siasia.
At 11am the players were then taken to the gym at their Febson Hotel camp for another round of exercises that saw them being pushed to their limits.
Addressing the players, head coach Samson Siasia said the players would be going through these physical exercises for the next one week, as their training schedule for now will be three times a day, as they do not have time on their hands, putting in mind that their first game is against Gabon is just days away.
“You should leave all the enjoyments and merriment you had during the yuletide season and face the job at hand, these training could be really rigourous, but to be the best you must give your best or else you don’t have any business being in this team ” he said.
Meanwhile aside the presence of all the invited home-based players who have arrived camp, the players were thrown into joy as two of the foreign-based players Atanda Sadiq and Stanley Amuzie stormed the team’s camp to increase the fight for jerseys.
According to them they do not want to take chances of being too over-confident of making the team, so they had to report with the rest of their team mates since they are still around.
