Originally known as CAF U-23 Championship, it was later changed to U-23 Africa Cup of Nations, similar to the senior version, Africa Cup of Nations. The north Africans have been drawn into arguably the tougher qualifying group, which will play their matches in M’Bour.
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Coach Samson Siasia is leaving no stone unturned his quest to ensure qualification to the 2016 Olympic Games which takes place in Rio, Brazil. Not making the trip to Senegal is Manchester City sensation Kelechi Iheanacho, as well as Granada’s Isaac Success.
While the build-up by Nigeria to the Africa U23 Cup of Nations could indeed have been much better, there would be no excuse for the Dream Team VI not to secure one of the three tickets up for grabs in Senegal.
Failure meant the Dream Team was not at the London Olympics the following year. All of that notwithstanding, the west Africans will go into the two-week tournament as one of the favourites.
Nigeria Football Federation president, Amaju Pinnick backed the team to achieve its primary aim at the tournament.
“For us, we are tactically sound and know the kind of opposition to expect”.
Coach Fighton Simukonda has included four foreign-based footballers, including in-form senior national team midfielder Lubambo Musonda, who plays for Armenian club Gandzasar. We have to train hard and make sure the players play to instructions.
The tournament will be held in Senegal between 28 November and 12 December 2015 with a total of eight teams namely; Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Zambia, South Africa and Tunisia participating.
At stake, is the 2016 Olympic qualification ticket.
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South Africa is a good team as well and they created some good chances. Fighton Simukonda has called up seven players who were involved in Chipolopolo’s 3-0 aggregate victory in a FIFA World Cup™ qualifier earlier this month. I am very happy that we got through this week, now we are waiting for kickoff.
