Nigeria: Eagles to Attack Ethiopia – Kalika

Daily Independent (Lagos)

20 March 2011

Super Eagles assistant coach, Simon Kalika, has promised that the team will attack Ethiopia for 90 minutes in the Sunday 2012 African Cup of Nations Cup qualifier.

“I don’t have any doubts that we will win. But we need to score goals. My bigger joy would be if we can play the way we want the team to play. This means that our players should ensure that they are far away from our own goal area as they mount pressure throughout the game on Ethiopia,” said Kalika.

“When we are in possession, we will open up the pitch by playing the wing play by the line and with a high ball circulation, we would try to bring out our crosses and score goals. We want to play with a lot of movement, with a lot of speed coupled with a lot of runs on the wings.”

“This is how we want to play not only against the Ethiopians but even if we play against world champions Spain. This time around we don’t want to fall back.

“We don’t want to play defensive football as well as counter football. We want to put high pressure in our play to shock our opponents. The moment the other team is building, our defenders are building too. That is chasing the ball already.

“So, we need to try to build our own attack as well as try to score goals. The AC Milan winger Nnamdi (Oduamadi) is a very skilful player and Ahmed Musa too. These players need the ball to destroy teams.

“We want to play attacking and aggressive football. Any match we play now, we are going to play with wingers who will attack with a lot of guts.”

The Nigeria number two said that under the new system they are trying to introduce they will attack with more players.

“We are no more playing with a diamond midfield with a number 10, but we are playing with two central midfielders so that we can attack with four players,” revealed Kalika.

“With a diamond midfield, it becomes very difficult if you have two top strikers with a number 10 and also to be in control, you have five players in front of the ball. So, we are playing a new system to put pressure on our opponents. You want to fight for the ball as well as engage in counter attacks.”

The Dutchman said the Eagles played this new system well in the first half of the friendly against Sierra Leone last month in Lagos.

“In the first half against Sierra Leone, it worked perfectly well with flashes from some players. In the second half, we changed a lot of players and it wasn’t as good as the first half,” he said.

“But with this new system we created like six open chances in the first half although we scored only two goals. I am not talking about half chances, but clear chances.

“We could have scored like six goals in the first half. Imagine if we keep training on this system, it would be great and the results would also be great.

“Personally, I am happy that the players like the new system and now we need to continue working on it to achieve the desired results.”

Nigeria beat Ethiopia 4-0 in a 1994 World Cup qualifying match in Lagos the last time both countries clashed at full international level.

AllAfrica – All the Time