Siasia: Our focus is on Colombia, not Brazil

U-23 Eagles coach Samson Siasia has said that the team is not thinking of playing against host Brazil but poised on defeating Colombia in their last group match billed for Wednesday.

Speaking at the post-match press conference after the 1-0 victory over Sweden, Siasia said his players are ready for Colombia.

“I think for me and the boys all we are doing now is taking it a game at a time, we are not bothered about the team we will be playing in the quarter finals, let’s play Colombia first and from there we will think of our opponents at that stage.

“The issue of the team I will prefer to play in the quarter final stage doesn’t arise now; what is uppermost in my mind is getting my boys focused for every game.”

He added that his defence –line that has been termed as being the weak link in the team will improve as the team progresses in the competition.

“As you all can see, today my defence line didn’t concede any goal, yes myself and my technical crew worked very hard to correct all the lapses we noticed in our first game and I am happy my boys stood their ground and kept a clean sheet today. All I can say for now is that it’s work in progress.”

On his part, captain Mikel Obi expressed delight that they have been able to improve on their performance from the first game, all thanks to the hard work of the technical crew.

Meanwhile, Sweden coach Hakan Ericson said the U-23 Eagles are superior to Colombia.

“I think we showed that it is possible to play against Nigeria. We were not at all up to standard in the first half. Now we had an opponent who was better. Above all, the enormous physical (advantage) make Nigeria better than Colombia team,” Ericson told TV3.

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