Ghana were better than us -Nigerian Coaches

Former coach of Enyimba Football Club of Aba, Okey Emordi and former Bayelsa Football Club chairman, Felix Beke have described the Under-23 match against Ghana last Sunday in Kumasi as one of the worst games the team have had in their qualifying series.

The duo, who could not understood what went wrong with the team, said the team lost focus and failed to utilise their chances.

According to Emordi “Honestly, I was surprised as we failed in Kumasi. I did not know how much motivation they had toward the match. Though they tried their best, the Ghanaians were more desperate, more forceful and more aggressive hence they won. Besides, it could have been as a result of intimidation in because I understood that the fans intimated them seriously on arrival from the airport to the playing pitch.

Playing in Kumasi was a plot by the Ghanaians to defeat our team. It could be that there are more Nigerian fans in Accra hence they moved the match to Kumasi as part of their strategy,” Emordi said.

Continuing he said: “All the same the coach cannot give what he doesn’t have, same thing is applicable to the players. The issue is that once the players are happy it will go along way to help them in the game.

I do not know how well they were motivated. I implore the NFF to come to the aid of the coaches so they can do their job very well by motivating the boys very to do well. I still see hope in the team, nothing is impossible especially when there is God.”

On his part, Beke said playing in Kumasi was not the problem, but the fact that the team did not play as instructed.

“Kumasi was not the problem. There were certain things they did not do very well, especially in the attack. The fact that we did not score a goal kept me worried, yet we had players who are experienced in the team.

Football has gone beyond home advantage, there is no way a player would score a good goal and it will be disallowed. We lost too much chances, if we had scored a goal in that match it would have helped us. Now that they could not qualify, they should prepare for the Olympics,” he advised.