Don't Give up on Super EaglesYet, Monimichele Pleads With Nigerians
Stadium Facilities Expert, Ebi Egbe, has urged Nigerians not to give up on the Super Eagles just yet because they played a scrappy 1-1 draw with Equatorial Guinea in their opening AFCON 2023 game in Abidjan on Sunday.
Egbe whose Monimichele Limited is Nigeria’s leading stadium turf construction company, insisted that in football adaptation to environment plays crucial role in determining how a team will end up in a tournament like the AFCON.
“In football, we have adaptation to playing conditions process. The team (Eagles) will perform better as the tournament progresses.”
Egbe insisted that Nigeria with some of the best players in European leagues will not disappoint.
“We have the best players in Africa today. Adaptation to the playing condition of the pitch will change the story of Nigeria’s Super Eagles in the AFCON 2023.
“Nigerians will see a better performing Eagles against the host Nation Cote d’Ivoire,” stressed the Monimichele CEO.
“I have said this times without numbers, the Nigeria Football Federation need to have a facilities committee with seasoned groundsmen as advance team to any major tournament.
“Technical playing conditions report would have helped our coaches in team formation which might see the need to fuse some of our NPFL players who are doing very well in our domestic NPFL, primarily because of the playing condition of the AFCON pitches,” Egbe observed.
He insisted that It takes continuous training for an elite player who has been trained on a speed football pitch “to adapt to the playing conditions of a slow, ball bouncing and rolling pitches like 100% natural grass pitches that naturally have slow ball movement.”
Egbe said that it was not just a Nigerian problem alone but for most of the players coming from leagues in Europe with very good facilities.
“This is not just a Nigerian problem. All the African teams that are made up of elite players ( from Europe) will suffer the same faith,” concludes the stadium facilities expert.