Eagles battle Congo Leopards in Belgium

The Super Eagles will face the Leopards of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a friendly match in Belgium on Thursday.

The match is one of the two arranged by the Nigeria Football Federation to prepare the Eagles for their upcoming 2018 World Cup and the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations fixtures. The Eagles will face Cameroon on Sunday. The Nigerians are stepping out barely 48 hours after the camp went in disarray following a disagreement between coach Sunday Oliseh and goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.

But on Wednesday the NFF President Amaju Pinnick said that calm had returned to the team.

He said, “I’m happy there is absolute peace in the camp and the players and coaches are thinking of nothing other than the two matches against DR Congo and Cameroon.

“Whatever misunderstanding that happened on Tuesday night has been peacefully resolved and everyone has forgotten about it. Anywhere you have a group of people there is propensity for misunderstanding now and again. The key thing is the immediacy of resolution and the maturity to forgive and forget.”

DR Congo, who won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1968 and 1974, have remained a strong force in African football. The Nigerian team have Enyeama, defenders Efe Ambrose and Elderson Echiejile, midfielders Mikel Obi and Ogenyi Onazi as well as forwards Ahmed Musa and Emmanuel Emenike among others.

Thursday’s clash will start at 7pm local time at the VISE Stadium, and will be the first between both countries’ senior teams in nearly six years.

A largely home-based Nigeria squad walloped the Leopards 5-2 in a friendly in Abuja in March 2010. Two goals by late Rashidi Yekini accounted for the Leopards ouster in a quarterfinal match of the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia, just as Yekini had scored the only goal of another quarter-final tie between the two teams in Senegal two years earlier.

After a meeting on Tuesday that involved officials of the Union Royale Belge des Societes de Football Association (Belgian FA), a decision was taken to stage the Super Eagles’ clash with the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon on Sunday at the Edmond Machtens Stadium in Brussels, with the match now to start at 8pm local time.