Football is one event in the Olympics where Nigerians are usually hopeful of a medal, if the god of soccer will smile at Nigeria in Brazil is the question only time can answer following the team’s failure to impress at an invitational tournament in Suwon South Korea.
The Dream Team finished third behind Korea Republic and Denmark in the four-nation tourney geared towards preparing the team for the forth-coming Olympic games in Brazil.
Nigeria came from behind to beat Honduras 3-1 in their last game of the tournament. The team had lost 1-0 to hosts South Korea and battered 6-2 by Denmark .
The coach agrees that the team is a work in progress and he has also lamented the poor performance of his boys.
Specifically, Siasia stated that his boys were unfit, unable to defend well and failed to convert myriad of chances created during games. He also disclosed that changes will be made in the team.
”The biggest problem we are having right now is that we do not defend very well; we create several chances but do not convert them. So, we need to make changes in those areas for us to move ahead from here, we have other games coming up too in America. After making those changes we will see how well the team will look going to the Olympics.
”I don’t see any plus right now, I only saw players that are not fit enough, that’s the biggest problem we had. The change of weather actually affected the few ones that we trusted to play well, most of them faltered, so that’s a problem, and we need to address these things in a hurry.”
Despite the Suwon tournament not being a serious competitive event, Nigerians have expressed worries over the performance of the team in Korea, Siasia already reckoned with the fact that Nigerians are pressing the panic button by condemning the team which he hope would serve as motivation to his side towards achieving something special in the event proper come August.
