CHAN Eagles have flown out of Nigeria down to Morocco to participate in the competition which will feature mostly home-based players.
Ikechukwu Ezenwa
Nigeria’s trophy-hunting Home-based Senior Team will fly out of the country in the night today for the 5th African Nations Championship taking place in Morocco, 13th January - 4th February 2018.
A few days ago, Head Coach Salisu Yusuf named a 23-man team to fly Nigeria’s flag at the finals, where the 2014 bronze medalists will play 2014 champions Libya, Rwanda and Equatorial Guinea in Group C.
Team Administrator, Dayo Enebi Achor told thenff.com at the weekend that the delegation will fly aboard a Turkish Airline flight from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and connect Rabat from Istanbul tomorrow morning.
“The team will train for a few days in Rabat before heading to Tangier on Friday, 12th January,” Achor explained to thenff.com.
The Ikechukwu Ezenwa-captained squad will take on Rwanda (hosts of the last edition of the competition two years ago) at the Stade Ibn Batouta on Monday, 15th January, starting from 7.30pm (8.30pm Nigeria time), before games against Libya at the same venue on Friday, 19th January (starting from 4:30pm; 5:30pm Nigeria time) and Equatorial Guinea in Agadir on Tuesday, 23rd January (starting 7pm Morocco time; 8pm Nigeria time).
Nigeria failed to qualify for the final competition of the first two editions of the CHAN, losing to Ghana in 2008 (ahead of Cote d’Ivoire 2009) and beaten on aggregate by Niger Republic in 2010 (ahead of Sudan 2011).