|
|
Nigeria/Ghana: Ghana Delegation Hits Abuja for Amaglug-Glug
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
This Day (Lagos)
26 March 2008
Posted to the web 26 March 2008
Femi Solaja
Lagos
Ahead of today's decisive Olympic qualifying tie between coach Samson Siasia's Dream Team IV and South Africa's Amaglug-glug at the National Stadium Abuja, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) six-man delegation will arrive, Lagos this morning and move to Abuja almost immediately to monitor proceedings.
Nigeria faces a hapless South African side and a win will knock close rival, Black Meteors of Ghana out for the sole ticket of group B but in spite of the precarious situation, the GFA still wants to be involve in mind games hoping that it will ensure the South Africans make a good fight and perhaps stop Nigeria from participation in the soccer event of the games.
"In football a lot of variables come into play we strongly believe that the match is still very much important to us even if we are not playing. Our presence in Abuja is not to make trouble because the three countries have a strong governmental relationship but we must not lose sight of the fact that any slip by Nigeria will give us a place at the Olympics," a member of the GFA commented yesterday.
The implication of the visiting Ghanaian delegation which is solely to stall any form of pre-arranged score line that will not favour the Black Meteors will not in anyway serve as the official match report to FIFA since the World Soccer body has already appointed its own match Commissioner while any counter reports from Ghana may only guide FIFA in fair judgement to all participants.
Meanwhile, Ghana's Olympic coach Jones Attuquayefio is hoping South Africa can salvage his team's Olympic dream when Amaglug-glug face Nigeria.
|
Ghana leads Nigeria by two points ahead of today's game and will qualify for the Olympic Games if South Africa avoids defeat in Abuja.
Attuquayefio admits the Nigerians are very strong at home, but he still intends to will South Africa on from Accra.
"The passion of the Nigerian crowd, the atmosphere they create and the manner they will their team on, makes it very difficult to get results there. But the two teams drew in the corresponding fixture, so I am hoping for a similar result. It is weird that we should be relying on a result from Abuja to be able to go through, but that is the nature of football," Attuquayefio told KickOffGhana.com.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
