Keshi Laments absence of Star Players from CHAN Championship

Keshi Laments absence of Star Players from CHAN Championship

Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi has lamented missing some of the homebased players who qualified Nigeria for the 2014 African Nations Championship(CHAN).

Nigeria qualified for CHAN tournament for the first time,defeating Ivory Coast 4-3 on aggregate to make the competition in South Africa next year.

Players like Godfrey Oboabona who played in the qualifiers has moved on to join a Turkish club,Rizespor.

Keshi who invited 30 players to camp for the competition next month,said that the exit of the players will affect their preparations for the tournament.

“The problem is most of the players have gone abroad to advance with their football career and now we need to make things work as the CHAN tournament starts on the 11th of January” Keshi admitted.

“Right now, we need to be able to get a team that will go to South Africa and perform well but that will create a great amount of work with the players we have now in training, we have to do it early but it’s too much work”

General Secretary of the Nigeria football Federation(NFF) Musa Amadu said that the team would could possibly be in camp for up to ten to fourteen days.

“They will start preparation soon; I don’t expect that there will be any yuletide break for them but I believe that we should have some form of camping even if it will be for 10 days or two weeks in South Africa so that the players can get acclimatized to the weather in Cape Town before the commencement of the championship,” Amadu told Brila FM