Roberto Mancini, a head coach of the Saudi Arabia’s Green Falcons has warned Ivory Coast and other African opponents of Nigeria ahead of the AFCON tournament next year npflupdates.com reports.
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Roberto Mancini’s Green Falcons last Friday exchanged tackles with the Super Eagles of Nigeria in a friendly match in Portimao, Portugal. And the Asian giants put up a great performance to earn a draw, thus ending it’s losing streak, and extending Nigeria’s lack of win in international friendlies.
Nigeria has never won any of its friendly matches in five years, losing eight times and drawing seven times in fifteen outings. However, they’ll hope to end the awful run when they take on the Mambas of Mozambique today.
Speaking after the Friday match, the former Manchester City manager, applauded his side for finishing well.
Also read: Boniface Cherish Victor Osimhen’s Partnership In Super Eagles Attack
Roberto Mancini talk about Super Eagles scary attack
“we ended the game the better side. But we could have lost because of the number of chances we gave away,” he said.
“Nigeria have very quick attackers and they play to their strength. Even the ones who started were subbed off, the new guys are almost the same level.”
The former Italy national team manager, teams should be careful of Nigerian attackers, as,”the attack is scary.”
In a related story, Super Eagles Jose Peseiro blamed his side’s lack of “killer instinct” as the reason why it drew against Saudi Arabia.
According to the Portuguese tactician, Nigeria needs to improve in it’s finishing if they would stand a chance at the 2023 AFCON. The attacking department of the national team, boasts of players like Serie A top scorer, Victor Osimhen, UEFA Europa League top scorer, Victor Boniface, Leicester City’s top scorer Kelechi Iheanacho, OGC nice forward, Terem Moffi, Milan’s Samuel Chukwueze, Sadiq Umar and Moses Simon.
“We need to improve on our finishing,” Peseiro said in his post-match interview.
“I think we played very well in the first half and could have scored about three to five goals and in the second half as well. We created more chances in the second half but we need the killer instinct in this squad but I’m happy with the result.”
Also, Peseiro talked about the difficulties facing the Super Eagles goalkeeping department. According to him, goalkeepers are no longer feeling comfortable playing for Nigeria because everybody attacks them.
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“When I arrived here, I remember I was told to change the goalkeeper. I spoke with all of them, No one feels comfortable because everybody attacked them,” the former Sporting CP gaffer stated.
