Nations Cup finalists Angola will play a warm-up match against a Nigeria team made up of players from the domestic league on January 11, officials have announced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe match will be played in Abuja,\u201d a top official informed MTNFootball.com<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a good test for the home-based Eagles who have been training in Abuja and will no longer break camp for the New Year celebrations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hosts of the 2010 Nations Cup, Angola are drawn in Group B of the 2012 Nations Cup along with Cote d\u2019Ivoire, Sudan and Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n
The Palancas Negras, who reached the quarterfinals as hosts, open their campaign in Malabo on January 22 against Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n
They were originally billed to train in Brazil beginning January 6 ahead of the biennial tournament.<\/p>\n
This month, Nigeria, who failed to reach the Nations Cup finals for the first time in 25 years, opened a training camp for players from the Nigeria Premier League.<\/p>\n
The local Eagles have so far played and won their three test games against teams like Ranch Bees and FRSC FC. The Eagles play against newly-promoted Rising Stars on January 4.<\/p>\n
Eagles coach Stephen Keshi has maintained he will give players from the local league a chance to stake a claim for places in his first-team squad.<\/p>\n
His first competitive game as Nigeria coach will be on February 29 in Kigali, when they tackle Rwanda in a 2013 Nations Cup qualifier.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nations Cup finalists Angola will play a warm-up match against a Nigeria team made up of players from the domestic league on January 11, officials have announced. \u201cThe match will be played in Abuja,\u201d a top official informed MTNFootball.com \u201cIt will be a good test for the home-based Eagles who have been training in Abuja and will no longer break camp for the New Year celebrations.\u201d Hosts of the 2010 Nations Cup, Angola are drawn in Group B of the 2012 Nations Cup along with Cote d\u2019Ivoire, Sudan and Burkina Faso. The Palancas Negras, who reached the quarterfinals as hosts, open their campaign in Malabo on January 22 against Burkina Faso<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n