Heartland manager, Ndubuoke writes off Nigeria's Super Eagles

Super Eagles squad that faced Lone Star of Liberia on Saturday in Calabar

Heartland of Owerri football Club General Manager, Fan Ndubuoke has written off the Super Eagles despite thrashing Liberia Lone Star 6-1 in Calabar on Saturday to qualify for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations starting next January in South Africa. 

Super Eagles thus qualified for the tournament on 8-3 goals aggregate having played 2-2 in the first leg of the qualifiers last September.

Speaking on a live sports programme monitored on Tuesday, Ndubuoke said that the team had little class and would have problems in South Africa.

Although he was happy with the result of the game, Ndubuoke argued that the Golden Eaglets team that defeated Junior Syli Stars of Guinea 3 – 0 in Calabar on Sunday played better football than the Super Eagles. 

“It was a nice game. But I have my reservations. This concerns the quality of players in the Super Eagles. The time has come for us to fashion a playing pattern for the team. The playing level of the U-17’s game was far better than what the Super Eagles played.

“What I want to see (before 2013 Nations Cup) is the real Nigerian style of play and not just scoring of goals alone,” Ndubuoke said.

He also lamented the treatment meted out to local players by the technical crew led by Coach Stephen Keshi. According to him, the local players played better than some foreign players in the game.

“I am not happy with the number of homebased players in the team. I stand to be corrected, but I believe that some home-based players were by far better than some of the foreign ones. There were some quality players that could have made the team.

“Let’s play a homebased versus foreign-based round robin game and the team be chosen from there and you will see what I mean,” Nduboke concluded.