Sports Briefs
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SAMSON Siasia, coach of Nigeria Dream Team VI, has finally picked Odion Ighalo, John Mikel Obi and Daniel Akpeyi as the three overage players for the football event at the Olympic Games holding in Rio, Brazil, in August. Reports from the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, showed that Siasia settled for the players because of established history of long ties among other pressing exigencies.
The Dream Team VI will camp in USA from where they will travel to Mexico City for a friendly match with the Mexico Under-23 team on July 2. They will later play two additional warm up matches, first against the US team in Atlanta on July 16, and later against Honduras on July 27.
Though Siasia plans to travel with 21 foreign-based and six home-based players on the tour, it was gathered he is yet to get firm guarantee from the two out-field over age players that they will be part of the US training camp.
Doubts surround the availability of Ighalo, who plays for Watford FC in England as the camping period will clash with the resumption of the English Premier League pre-season ahead of the start of the campaign in August after a long end of the season holiday.
The Mikel situation is also dicey as he may consider skipping the US camp altogether in order to convince new Chelsea coach Antonio Conte that he is still a key player that the Italian can count on at Stamford Bridge.
NFF sources revealed last night that though Mikel has been cleared by Chelsea’s technical director, Mike Emenalo to join the Nigerian Olympic team, he is still waiting for the final word from Conte before departing to America.
— Jul 4, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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