We’re ready for Eagles –Antelopes

Ethiopia coach Bishaw  Sewnet  and midfielder Menyahil Teshome insist the team are ready to face the Super Eagles,  tipping the  Walya Antelopes to seal their place at next year’s World Cup at Nigeria’s expense.

 The North-East African country, who are ranked 93 in the latest FIFA rankings,   host Nigeria, who occupy the 36 position on the rankings,  in the  first leg 2014 World Cup qualifying playoff  in Addis Ababa on Sunday.  The return match will take place in Calabar   on November 16. The aggregate winners qualify for next year’s finals in Brazil.

 

African champions Nigeria are favourites to win the two-legged playoff and qualify for Brazil 2014, but Sewnet  and Teshome  maintain  that   the Walya Antelopes have the quality to pull off one of the greatest upsets in  African football by beating the Eagles to play at the World Cup.

He warned the Eagles not to underestimate  the Walya Antelopes, saying the  team they beat 2-0 at the  2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa had learned some lessons from the defeat.

“If you look seriously at that match, Nigeria were not a better team than us. Up to the (end) we were performing good. But in the last 10 minutes they used their experience, so they got two penalties,” Sewnet was quoted by AFP as saying on Monday.

Teshome said, “I think we will have a better game in the coming match against Nigeria.” We are ready for this match, we are very ready. We learned a lesson from the mistakes we made last time.Our strength is our team spirit.

“We have nothing to fear. Until now, we’ve been supported by our people.”

Sewnet said the team had trained very hard  for the encounter and deserved to pick up three points.

“I don’t know Brazil, so I want to see it,” he said.

“We have tried to prepare them (team)  physically as well as mentally in the first week and now we are doing our tactical work and we will continue in the coming few days to combine the two.

“We have a huge task ahead of us and as you know the entire country is expectant of good results and we cannot afford to let them down at this important time.”

Meanwhile,  Sudan-based Addis Hintsa,  Libya-based Shemeles Bekele  and Israel-based Asrat Mergasa trained with the team at the Addis Ababa National Stadium venue for the game on Monday.