Super Eagles of Nigeria Head Coach, Gernot Rohr has urged the leadership of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to secure his team two top-notch friendlies against African oppositions next month ahead of the November AFCON 2021 qualifiers against Benin, AOIFootball.com reported.
The Franco-German guided Nigeria to a record-extending 8th AFCON bronze medal last July in Egypt but felt his team now needed the physicality of African opposition if they are to repeat their 2019 heroics, which saw them qualified with a game to spare.
“Now it’s time to focus on the AFCON qualifiers. The game against Ukraine has gone and the boys did very well in my opinion.
“Next month, we have two possible windows and I think it will be good for us to have an African opponent because of the qualifiers in November,” Rohr reasoned.
Rohr, who also admitted that he already knew what his team will look like for the upcoming windows, further pleaded with the NFF to allow the game take place in Europe to enable his players easily gather like the last game in Ukraine.
“We saw already in the last window that a lot of teams played in Europe and it was easy to gather their players. We love our fans back home, but we also need all the players to be on ground to enable us to plan ahead of the Benin Republic clash in November,” Rohr concluded.
The three-time African champions will begin their quest to reach back to back AFCON for the first time in six years, when they welcome neighbour, Benin in November before also flying to Lesotho few days later for their second match in the qualifiers.