Francis Ajuonuma
After watching the Flying Eagles finish third at the just concluded U-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, ex-international and former Super Eagles head coach, Christian Chukwu says the team has a lot of hard work to do to be competitive at the FIFA World Cup which holds from May 20 to June 11, 2023, in Indonesia.
Chukwu, while assessing the Flying Eagles’ performance in Cairo, identified the midfield as the weakest department of the team which the coaching crew led by Ladan Bosso must improve on to guarantee a better team in Indonesia.
Chukwu, a member of Nigeria’s coaching crew that won the first FIFA U-17 World Cup in China and also part of the Clemence Westerhof-led coaching crew that guided the Super Eagles to an impressive outing at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, noted that the players Nigeria paraded in Egypt are good individually but lack team play which contributed to a large extent their elimination in the semi-finals of the U-20 AFCON.
“First and foremost I’ve to congratulate them for qualifying for the World Cup, It’s not easy you know. Secondly, they need a lot of work to do. Individually we have good players but we are not playing completely as a team yet to my own understanding and what I’ve watched of the team. But I’m sure Bosso will do something now before the time for the World Cup reaches,’ he said.
“We need to work on the midfield because I’ve not seen a creative midfield in there that will be controlling the game. So that is what we need. If we have a good midfield, we’ll have a perfect team to challenge for the world cup title in Indonesia,” the former Harambee of Kenya head coach added.
Flying Eagles, who lost to their Gambian counterparts in the first semi-finals defeated Tunisia in the losers’ final to grip the bronze trophy, while Senegal emerged as the champions after defeating The Gambia 2-0 in the final.
All the semi-finalists- Tunisia, Nigeria, The Gambia and Senegal will fly Africa’s flag at the world.
