Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi has said he expects Jordan to give the Super Eagles a tough match in Amman on Monday.
Jordan will use the friendly to prepare for a 2014 World Cup final playoff against Uruguay.
“Jordan is being together for a while and they play Uruguay in the World Cup playoff, so we are playing a very strong team and it would be a difficult game,” Keshi was quoted by MTNFootball.com as saying on Sunday.
It is the first time both countries will go head-to-head in an international match.
The African champions made the trip to Amman with players drawn from the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).
Chigozie Agbim, Azubuike Egwuekwe, Sunday Mba, Rabiu Ali, Gambo Mohammed, Solomon Kwambe, Ezekiel Mba and Oghenekaro Etebo are among players in the squad to face Jordan.
Nigerian head coach, Stephen Keshi, explained that his team will draw some exposure from the warm-up game as they prepare for the African Nations Championship (Chan) in South Africa in January.
"The game is a good test for the boys as we keep building towards the championship in South Africa for next year. Jordan might not be a powerhouse in world football, we won't take them lightly. We want to get a result to help the confidence level of our team ahead of the championship next year," Keshi told supersport.com.
The Nigerians go into Monday's friendly with a run of four consecutive wins from their last four international matches against South Africa, Malawi, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia.
The last time the African champions lost an international game was on June 23 when world champions, Spain defeated them three-nil at the Confederations Cup in Brazil.
But the Jordanians have not won in their last five games - playing draws in all five.
Libya were the last team Jordan defeated in a friendly game 2-1 in Amman in August.
The Jordanians are using the game against Nigeria as tune-up for the 2014 Fifa World Cup playoffs against Uruguay in November.
Jordan head coach, Husam Hasan, called up 25 players for their pre-World Cup playoffs.
Hasan named five new players in Jordan's roster and they are Hatem Aqel, Shareef Adnan, Mohammad Shatnawi, Tariq Khattab and Thaer Bawab.
The Jordan-Nigeria match will kick off from 6pm (5pm CAT) Nigerian time at the Amman International Stadium this Monday.
Catch all the action live on SS9 from 4:55pm CAT.
No comments:
Post a Comment