Nigeria’s Under-23 national team Head Coach, Samson Siasia, has heaped praises on his players for showing resilience to edge Congo for a place at this year’s Caf Under-23 Championship in Senegal.
Siasia described the second leg clash with Congo as “difficult” after his men failed to make the reverse fixture count in terms of the margin of goals with which they won in Port Harcourt, Rivers State a fortnight ago.
The Nigerian under-23s scrapped to a 2-1 win in the first leg and that result gave Congo a glimpse of chance to progress to the African tournament if they had won by just a goal.
But Siasia explained that he had no choice than to set up his team in an attacking manner in order to stop the Congolese from edging his side out.
“Playing a match like this is always difficult, but then I knew our best tactics for this game was to go all out and attack, because if they scored a goal against us, we would be out of the race. My boys did what I told them, but then we missed a couple of clear chances that are unpardonable. However, we did the job and we are into the African U-23 finals,” Siasia said to thenff.com.
Nigeria have now joined Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, South Africa and Zambia as the nations that have qualified for the tournament in Senegal.
The Caf Under-23 Championship will take place between November 28 and December 12 this year.