Super Eagles Coach; Stephen Keshi admitted that Nigeria; the Super Eagles had fair deal in the recent draw of the AFCON 2013 which was done on Wednesday in the city of Durban; South Africa.
Nigeria was grouped with defending champions, the Copper Bullets of Zambia, Stallion of Burkina Faso and the Brave Warriors of Ethiopia in Group C for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations holding in South Africa, and the Super Eagles manger Keshi said the group is not a group of death as most of the tournament before pitches Nigeria with A-list teams like the Super Eagles but this group is a fair one and the Super eagles will make an impressive impact in the group.
The Super Eagles will take on Burkina Faso in their opening group game at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit on January 21, 2013.
Four days later at the same venue, Nigeria will take on the Zambians they defeated 2-1 to win their second AFCON trophy and then round off their group campaign against Ethiopia at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg on January 29.
Meanwhile, Zambia’s Coach, Herve Renard has said that the pairing in Group C was an opportunity for the Copper Bullets to revenge the quarter final defeat they suffered against the Super Eagles at the 2010 edition in Angola.
“We crashed out of the quarter-finals in 2010 to Nigeria,” Renard recalled Thursday. “So we have a good chance of revenge against a very good Nigerian team.”
Stephen couldn’t hide his joy as he had everything to be happy for as he scaled the hurdle of his first acid test when he qualified for the AFCON 2013 unlike his predecessor Samson Siasia whom he took over from after he was fired for failing to qualify Nigeria for the last edition of the African showpiece football tournament jointly hosted by Gabon and Equatorial, now his second hurdle is the AFCON 2013 himself which to him no start can be as fair what his team got in terms of groupings.
Keshi said the Super Eagles are already in a group so preparedness will be their watchword from now, this was after the draws in Durban South Africa while being questioned by our reporter.
He said every team in the AFCON 2013 is an outstanding team and no team should be relegated as underdogs will always emerged,
as he cited Burkina Faso as a very good team, looking at their performance in the 2012 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations.
He promised that Nigeria will be fully prepared for the AFCON 2013 as serious strategizing will start immediately.
“We will go home and strategize and see what we can come up with when we come up against these teams”.
