Ahead of the Super Eagles of Nigeria clash against the senior national team of South Africa, coach of the team Stuart Baxter has confessed that his team are training on formations incase they have a player sent off.
Baxter made the revelation upon arrival in Nigeria yesterday for the Saturday’s game which is the first step for both teams in the road to qualify for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.
The coach admits Nigeria will no doubt be a hard nut to crack, but he has prepared his team including the worst case scenario of having a player sent off during the course of the game.
“I think we’ve just got to be braver and say‚ ‘Look‚ how do we deal with this game‚ how do we manage it?’.
“There are certain things you can do.
“But what you don’t want to do is just be there on the field and not have a plan.
“We have dealt (in training) with a situation where we are leading.
“Yesterday we put on a scenario where we were playing XI v XI in the afternoon and I sent one of the players off.
“And I said‚ ‘Right‚ you’re leading 1-0‚ what do you do’.
“We’ve appproached that and they did it very well yesterday.
“We’ve approached how we would kill the game off if we were leading‚ and we’ve approached what we would do if we were chasing the game.
“So we’ve got a couple of ‘what if’ scenarios‚and one of them is that last critical phase.”
Ade Emmanuel
