Saturday Nigeria vs Rwanda WITH games coming thick and fast, Amavubi Stars are now plotting to end their poor scoring record when they take on Nigeria in the return leg of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier this weekend.
SaturdayNigeria vs Rwanda
WITH games coming thick and fast, Amavubi Stars are now plotting to end their poor scoring record when they take on Nigeria in the return leg of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier this weekend.After two difficult 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Algeria and Benin, played on each of the last two weekends respectively; Amavubi will again be back in action this Saturday when they face the Super Eagles in Calabar.The team leaves for Calabar this morning aboard Rwandair. They will have a stop-over in Lagos before connecting to Calabar aboard a chartered plane. The first leg clash in Kigali ended goalless.Speaking to Times Sport yesterday, head coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojovic said the team remains disappointed for not winning Sunday’s game against Benin."The players are still disappointed for not getting the result they think they deserved, but I have told them to put that in the past and concentrate on the coming game against Nigeria on Saturday,” stated the Serb, whose team has drawn two and lost three of the last five matches."I have asked the players to forget about the last game, find their happiness (back) and keep the winning mentality (although we didn’t win on Sunday),” he added.The Serb noted, "It won’t be easy to get a result against Nigeria, but we’re going there with a mentality to win and at least get a draw, we don’t want to even think of losing. I believe if we play good football, the way we did against them in the first leg, we’ll have a chance.”Under pressureHe predicted ttheir opponents will be under a lot of pressure considering they are coming off a disappointing 1-1 draw with Malawi in the 2014 World Cup qualifier."We are going to continue preparing for Nigeria the same way we have been doing in the last couple of weeks. They (Nigeria) will be under more pressure than us, and I think this will be a big motivation for us to go out there and play for a win without any pressure,” the coach stressed.Rwanda has appeared at the Africa Cup of Nations finals only once in 2004 when it was hosted by Tunisia. Should Amavubi overcome Nigeria, they will advance to the third qualifying round that brings together qualifiers from the second round and the 16 teams that competed at the Africa Nations Cup finals held in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea early this year.