Tag: Siasia

AfricanFootball.com can exclusively reveal the three over-aged players coach Samson Siasia plans to take to the Rio Olympics in August – Chelsea midfielder Mikel Obi, Watford striker Odion Ighalo and Ahmed Musa from CSKA Moscow.

These are the only over-aged players on the 60-man provisional squad for the summer games, we have exclusively gathered.

This means the Olympics dreams of Lazio midfielder, Ogenyi Onazi have been dashed.

The Olympics allows for three players who are beyond the eligible age of 23 to feature.

Siasia himself reasoned Mikel, 28, is keen on playing at Rio after he missed out on Beijing Olympics in 2008.

The coach has not hidden his admiration for 26-year-old Ighalo, who he made captain for the 2009 FIFA U20 World Cup in Egypt.

He has also praised the striker’s form in front of goal even though he had struggled to score in recent weeks now for club and country.

Ahmed Musa though was a surprise choice after Siasia stripped him of the Super Eagles captaincy in March.

The CSKA Moscow flying winger looks set to quit the Russian club in the summer with the English Premier League a likely destination.

He has played at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, 2013 AFCON as well as the 2011 U-20 World Cup.

HEAD Coach of the Nigeria U-23 team, Samson Siasia has disclosed that the draws for the football event of the Rio Olympic Games which saw his side pooled against Sweden, Japan and Colombia is not a bad one.
The draws held on Thursday at the auditorium of the Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro saw the Dream Team, the reigning African champions, drawn against Asian champions Japan, European champions Sweden and Colombia, who beat USA in an intercontinental play off to reach Rio.
Speaking from Rio de Janeiro after the draws, Coach Siasia said there are no good or bad draws, and he believes the Dream Team can qualify from the group. “For me, there is no good or bad draw, for all the teams played qualifiers to get here. Besides, the Group B that we are in has two continental champions alongside Nigeria, so I don’t expect it to be a stroll in the park for us, but with quality preparations I am sure we will pick one of the tickets from this group.
“My target in Rio is to pick the gold medal having won the silver medal in Beijing in 2008, so when I get back to Nigeria, I will put heads together with my assistants to work out our preparations for the Games. I am confident that with the calibre of players at our disposal, we will achieve our goal.”
On the issue of which three over-aged players to select for the Games, Coach Siasia said: “Yes, I already have in mind the three over aged players that I intend using at the Games. But I will not disclose their names for now as I think it’s still too early to do so.” Siasia is expected to return to the country this weekend.

Dream Team VI team handler Samson Siasia has told SportingLife that if there is one thing he is scared of for Nigeria’s participation in Rio Olympics this year is the release of the eligible players from Europe for Nigeria’s camping and preparations for the Games holding this August in Brazil.

“August is when clubs in Europe would commence their leagues and experience has shown over the years that clubs in Europe are always very reluctant to release players for Olympics competition. So if there is no pressure and mutual understanding between these clubs and the Nigeria Football Federation we may be deprived of our best legs in the Olympics.

“That is the reason why I want us to start our preparations now so that we can mould a better and stronger team than the one that won the Africa U- 23 Championship in Senegal. We can’t rely solely on the foreign based players because they might disappoint us if their clubs fail to release them,” Siasia told SportingLife.

Siasia as at the time of filing this report was on the heels of the Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung and the chieftains of the Nigeria Football Federation to ensure that at the latest the team starts camping on Monday.

“Right now I want to go and see the Honourable Minister and the General Secretary of the NFF Dr Sanusi Muhammed on this issue. Hopefully we may kick start our camping on Monday next week,” Siasia disclosed.

It is now almost certain that Samson Siasia will not be considered nor favoured to get the Super Eagles job after the former International failed to get the team past Egypt in the AFCON 2017 qualifiers.

Member of the NFF Technical Committee and former Shooting Stars administrator, Mutiu Adepoju suggested the matter of the appointment of a substantive coach for the Super Eagles will be discussed during the committee’s meeting.

Adepoju hailed his former teammate’s commitment to the Eagles bid to salvage Nigeria’s qualification chances for the Gabon 2017 AFCON but regrets the outcome.

Siasia was drafted in from the U-23s for his second stint as Eagles handler.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Amuneke will commence his new role as Flying Eagles coach next week as the Nigeria Football Federation General Secretary revealed the team will open camp for the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Dr. Mohammed Sanusi told footballlive.ng the defending champions will certainly resume preparation for the 20th edition edition of the youth championship but no detail was given as to the location.

Nigeria clinched its seventh title of the competition last year, after it defeated hosts Senegal 1-0.

Coach Samson Siasia has accepted the fate of Nigeria while admitting that Egypt deserved the victory they got in Alexandria during the 2017 AFCON qualifiers.

He also congratulated Egypt, saying, “Egypt deserved to win in the Alexandria game. I congratulate them for the victory and I thank Nigeria’s players for their performance,” the 48-year-old tactician told reporters after the game.

Egypt moved within touching distance of a place at next year’s tournament for the first time since 2010 after Ramadan Sobhi scored in the second half at Alexandria’s Borg El-Arab Stadium amid a large fan attendance.

“The fans attendance didn’t influence our performance negatively but in fact it helped the opponents’ morale and supported them powerfully,” the former Durgapur FC coach added.

The win cemented Egypt’s position on top of Group G with seven points, five clear of second-placed Nigeria who have now lost hope of reaching Africa’s most prestigious tournament in Gabon next year.

“I have been appointed in the Nigerian job in very hard circumstances. The Egypt game was like a challenge for me and I thank my team for what they did,” Siasia who took over the Super Eagles earlier this month added.

With one game left against Tanzania, after Chad decided to withdraw from the group two days ago, Egypt could formally secure qualification even with a minor loss to the east African team.

Tanzania’s slim hopes in gaining the upper hand in the head-to-head record with the Pharaohs lie in 1) beating Egypt by more than a three-goal margin — given that they suffered an opening 3-0 defeat by the Pharaohs in June last year — and 2) overcoming Nigeria in their final game.

Nigeria coach, Samson Siasia has said he still believes his team can win in Egypt tonight to get their AFCON 2017 campaign back on track after they were forced to a 1-1 draw at home in the first game.

Nigeria have their backs against the wall even more after Chad pulled out of the AFCON qualifiers citing financial constraints as only one team can qualify for Gabon 2017 from this three-team group with Egypt in pole position two points clear at the top of the standings

“We can still make the difference in Egypt,” said a confident Samson Siasia, who was appointed in temporary charge of the Super Eagles last month after the shock resignation of Sunday Oliseh.

“We have to encourage the boys so that they could play for Nigeria.”

Turkey-based forward, Umar Aminu made his full international debut for the Eagles as a second half substitute and he said Egypt were lucky to get a draw in Kaduna.

“We’re going to Egypt to win. They were lucky to get an equaliser (in the first match), but we have learnt from this experience,” he said.

The Eagles departed Abuja on Monday morning for Alexandria on a chartered flight.

Super Eagles’ Caretaker Coach, Samson Siasia has blamed loss of concentration on the part of his players and the Egyptians not sticking to Fair play rule cost the Nigerian team victory against the visiting Pharaohs of Egypt in the first leg of the double header of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nation decided at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna yesterday.

The visibly disappointed Coach who had promised victory against Egypt was very disappointed that the victory slipped from his team’s hands just barely three minutes to the end of the game in Kaduna when the Egyptians failed to apply the rule of fair in the match that Eagles defender, Godfrey Oboabona was fouled.

“Firstly I will have to say that in football there is no more home advantage or away advantage. We lost concentration in the last three minutes of the extra time. One of our players (Godfrey Oboabona) was down and instead of kicking the ball far away for fair play he kicked it to our side which is wrong.

“Fair play sometimes is not fair play. If you are losing almost at the end of the game you won’t do the fair play rule. Fair play or not fair play we should be marking a player like Mohamed Salah until the last seconds of the game. I think we should blame ourselves not the Egyptians.

He however vowed to turn the table in Alexandria saying that in football anything can happen and that there is no more home or away advantages.

“We will turn the table in Alexandria, of course we can. We have been in this situation before so why can’t we (win in Alexandria). We have to move forward after today’s game. Moving forward is that we have to get ourselves together and try to go to Egypt and win. This is a game of football when anything can happen. So we will go out there and try and win in Egypt. If we don’t win that means we are out of the game. We will try our best to go and win there. Everything is possible”, Siasia promised.