Top Nigeria players Promise to beat Black stars

LAGOS (October 29, 2000 1:11 p.m. EST) - Nigeria will beat arch-rival Ghana and qualify for the World Cup finals, the country's top stars have assured Dutch coach Jo Bonfrere.

"After the Sydney Olympics I spoke to Sunday Oliseh and Austin Okocha, and they told me, 'Coach this will be our last World Cup and nobody, not even Ghana, will stop us from qualifying.'

"They said they want to finally put to rest their poor outing in France and the only place to do so is at another World Cup," Bonfrere said here. The Dutch coach added: "Next year we have two difficult games at home against sudan and Ghana. But we have all agreed that the key to our qualification would still be the two matches against Ghana.

"We all want to be at the next World Cup. How we get there is not important." Bonfrere said at the weekend that Nigerian soccer is dying and there is an urgent need to bring in new players to the national team. Ghana Black Stars leads Nigeria's World Cup group with three points from its comprehensive 5-0 win over Sierra Leone at home. Nigeria is also on three points but surprisingly lost in Monrovia to Liberia to give Ghana an added advantage.