Manu: I Will Be Disappointed Not To. Beat Morocco

Flying Eagles coach Manu Garba has said he will be “highly disappointed” were his team not to beat Morocco in Casablanca in a second friendly on Friday.

Both teams played out a 2-2 draw in the first match played in Rabat on Wednesday.

They are both preparing for
2015 African Youth Championship qualifiers early next month.

“I will be highly disappointed if we didn’t win the second match as this will help team confidence,” said Manu.

“This is a team who want to win always and so I expect us to improve on what we did on Wednesday by converting our chances and correct our mistakes.

“We need to improve on our goal scoring and also work on our defence.

“We are also yet to hit peak form because most of these players have not been in action for some time now.”

The Flying Eagles coach added: “Overall it was not a bad match being our first top friendly since we assembled this team.

“Some of the players lacked confidence and at this level we have to dominate.

“What gave me the biggest satisfaction was that we created so many chances and had we buried them, we would have been talking a different story now.

“It was most helpful for the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to have organised these matches for us and I believe if we could get another two such games, we would be a lot more stable as a team.”

The U17 World Cup-winning coach will also praise the character of the Junior Atlas Lions of Morocco.

“They showed great character by coming back twice against us. They passed the ball very well and did not hold on to it for too long,” he said.

“This is a team who will go places going by what we saw.”

The second friendly will now be played by 4pm local time, which is same time with Nigeria, in Casablanca.

Meanwhile, all the foreign-based call-ups bar Isaac Success and Dele Alampasu have joined the rest of the squad left behind in Abuja.

The players are skipper Musa Muhammed, Kelechi Iheanacho, Chidiebere Nwakali and Chidera Eze.