Following Nigeria's defeat against Sudan on Saturday, head coach of the Super Eagles, Stephen Keshi has asked Nigerians to forgive him and his team.

The Eagles failed to record their first win in the qualifiers for the 2015 African Nations Cup, AFCON, against the Falcons of Jediane at the Municipal stadium in Khartoum as they were defeated 0-1.

Speaking on the poor performance of the Nigerian team, Keshi said his side would have claimed victory in the contest if early chances were converted.

“I must ask you to help me apologize to Nigerians for this loss because they have so much (belief) in this team and here we are disappointing them.

“The day was simply not ours, because we had a couple of early chances that we would used to bury the game but the ball simply refused to enter into the net.

“Once again on behalf of the team I want to apologise to Nigerians and promise them we will make an immediate amend come Wednesday.

Marcus Thuram player profile: Borussia, injury, contracts

Football

“This is the first time I am doing this in my entire career as a player and coach”, he said.

AfricanFootball.com also quoted Keshi on Monday allegedly saying: “There is a sabotage by some people, who I won’t mention their names but who know themselves. They want to run this team down

“Some people are ready to sell this country for a dime. They want to sabotage the Super Eagles.

“It’s a shame. They don’t want this team to get to the AFCON, they want this team to lose outright. But they are not God.

“And this is not Keshi’s team. This is a national team. Keshi is a professional coach and after this (assignment), he will get another job elsewhere.”

Nigeria hosts Sudan in a reverse fixture on Wednesday in Abuja. The African champions must now win the remaining three matches and hope other results in the group were favourable in order qualify for the championship.

Tebogo Langerman's cars, net worth, houses, wife and salary

Football

Captain of the Eagles, Vincent Enyeama, while expressing confidence that the Nigerian team would qualify for the 2015 AFCON finals in Morocco, apologised to Nigerians for the defeat against Sudan.

“We didn’t go out there to lose to Sudan but it has happened and that is now history and I apologize on behalf of my teammates for that but we must quickly forgive and forget.

“We have a game on Wednesday and if we win that and our last two games, we will still be in Morocco.

“Let Nigerians forgive us and also pray for us to win our remaining games,” the OSC Lille man said.

Supersport reports that Nigeria is currently bottom of Group A with one point from three games. South Africa tops the group with seven points, Congo has six points while Sudan has three points to their credit.

Meanwhile, Eagles' strike Emmanuel Emenike has blamed the bad condition of the pitch in Khartoum for Saturday's lose against Sudan.

AFCON 2022: start date, fixtures, groups, teams to watch out for, venues

Football

Futaa.com reports that Emenike and his team mates bitterly complained about the condition of the playing surface after the shock 1-0 loss to Sudan in Khartoum.

"Where we played on Saturday is worst than when we were playing street football, CAF must act to stop nonsense like this from happening and they deliberately took us there because they know we play in better pitches.

"The Sudanese left the pitch flooded before the game, ensuring that the visitors had no chance of practising on it before the game.

"Then, the pitch became miraculously dry hours later, ready for the game," Emenike was quoted.

Do you think Emenike is right with this assertion?

Authors