International Friendly: Super Eagles Receive Back-pat

Nigeria 0-4 Mexico

The Home-based Super Eagles have received a warm back-pat despite losing 4:0 to Mexican team during the international friendly match played, weekend.

Amaju Pinnick, the Nigerian Football Federation and FIFA council member has commended the Super Eagles as he believes the match is loaded with positives take home.

Amaju, who watched the match live in Los Angeles expresses satisfaction disregarding the result but focusing on the performance and team spirit displayed by the home-based Super Eagles.

“I am not disappointed at all with the result, rather I am more impressed by the dexterity of the boys, their resilience and the ‘never say die’ spirit of Nigeria displayed by the boys.

“The stringing of their passes were sublime, exuded an appreciable level of confidence and that is the positives from the match,” he posited
He said the exposure the players garners from the match will go a long way to boost their confidence. “The exposure the boys got from a match of that magnitude cannot be undermined. The stadium was 90% filled by the Mexicans and this is the first time the boys will be playing a high profile match like that and irrespective of the result. In spite of the fact that the Mexican team is ranked 11th in the World, time difference and the Super Eagles just trained twice and played together for the first time, they held their own and made us proud.”

He further assured Nigerians that the home-based players will be given more friendly matches in the near future, saying the team will not be dissolved.

“The boys will play more friendly matches by October to give them more exposure, by then their confidence level will be higher and they will be able to know what it takes to play high profile matches like that. We are not going to dissolve the team, the boys will be kept together and I’m waiting for the technical report from the technical team and from there we will take it further,” he said.

“The Essence of this match is to give the home based players exposure and I want to reiterate that the NPFL teams are not bad with the level they played against the Mexicans. The Mexicans Captain plays in Atletico Madrid, they have players from Napoli and other top teams in the world and they are CONCACAF champions preparing to play another tournament. Our boys were assembled in two weeks and they were able to hold their own on the pitch against Mexico. We must commend them and give them credit for what they’ve done.”