Nigeria’s Super Eagles B team coach, Salisu Yusuf has admitted that the Ghanaians are more prepared as per fitness ahead of this weekend’s 2023 CHAN final round of qualifiers in Cape Coast Ghana.
Salisu Yusuf speaking to the media after a training session on Thursday evening, admitted that Ghana’s preparation heading into Sunday’s clash is slightly better compared to the CHAN Eagles preparation who has played only three practice friendly matches with the latest being Tuesday’s 1-1 draw against Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) side, Plateau United.
The Black Galaxies of Ghana on the other hand have played a lot of matches which will boost their match fitness including their recent tour in Europe where they lost 2-1 to the Qatar National Team on Tuesday in Austria.
“I believe that Ghana has good preparations, since the beginning of the month they are playing games, so in terms of match fitness, they are ahead of us,” Yusuf confessed.
To sharpen up the boys, Yusuf told the media what he has been doing to avoid match rustiness come Sunday when they face Ghana as well as how prepared they are.
“It’s been like two weeks since we started camping. The first four days were to improve their physical condition of the players, because the league was off, 90 percent of the players here were not in the FA Cup so naturally they are down, so we had to improve their physical condition and start teaching them how we want them to play and that is what we have been doing in these past days like 10 days.
” I must commend the players. They are doing their best, they are grabbing, although they didn’t have much time I am still more confident that they will give an account of their time.” Yusuf told the media.
When asked about the team conceding early in their friendly games, Salisu Yusuf blamed it on fatigue, but he believes it won’t be an issue for Sunday’s clash if the team can get its strategy and tactics right.
“They don’t have much fitness for the first two games they played or the last three games, you know they’ve not been playing games at their clubs so they are off.
“Naturally their action and the speed of thought is always coming in late. I think yesterday they showed improvement on that and I believe we’ll push them to the level that fatigue is not going to be a problem and the action speed that we want I believe they can give their all now.
“I believe if we can put our tactics and strategy correctly we can have a good game”
Nigeria will battle West African rivals, Ghana on Sunday, August 28 at the Cape Coast Stadium by 4 pm before travelling for the return leg fixture at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja on September 3 for a sole ticket to the 2023 Africa Nations Championship in Algeria.