Obuh warns Guatemala will be tough

African champions Nigeria will be the big favourites to win this Group D match at the refurbished Estadio Centenario in Armenia, but Obuh has insisted there is nothing lightweight about Guatemala, who are making their debut in the tournament. “We will play Guatemala as if we are playing Brazil or Argentina,” said Obuh. “It no […]

African champions Nigeria will be the big favourites to win this Group D match at the refurbished Estadio Centenario in Armenia, but Obuh has insisted there is nothing lightweight about Guatemala, who are making their debut in the tournament.

“We will play Guatemala as if we are playing Brazil or Argentina,” said Obuh.

“It no longer works about who is a known football nation. For them to qualify for the World Cup they must be good enough.

“We expect a tough match against them even though some will tell us that they are not a top football nation. Panama opened our eyes to the fact that football has grown across the world.

“We believe we have learnt a few things about Guatemala after we played against Panama recently. So we have a fair idea of what they are about.

“We need to put more effort to make sure we come out of our group. It’s not about a football-playing nation or not. We just have to work.”

Nine players from his team to the 2009 FIFA U17 World Cup hosted by Nigeria made the final squad to Colombia and he reminded them in training Wednesday that another “non-football playing nation” Honduras gave them a very tough match two years ago.

“The match against Honduras was one of our most difficult at the 2009 U17 World Cup even though we eventually won it. It showed that you take any team for granted at your own peril,” Obuh warned.

Los Chapines have already shocked Nigeria at this level when they defeated a Flying Eagles team led by coach Samson Siasia 3-1 at an invitational tournament in Egypt prior to the 2009 U20 World Cup.

They sensationally ousted one of the power houses of North and Central American football, United States of America, 2-1 to qualify for Colombia 2011 after placing third in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament they hosted.

Their Paraguayan coach Ever Hugo Almeida has said his target is to ensure his team do not finish bottom of Group D, which also has Croatia and Saudi Arabia.

However, confidence must be sagging after they lost all four games in their warm-up matches against Uruguay and Argentina.

They lost 7-0 in their first clash with Uruguay and lost the second game 3-0 and in Argentina, they first fell 3-1, before they lost 1-0.

After the 7-0 hammering by Uruguay, where they played with four defenders, they have since changed to playing with five at the back and this could well explain the far more respectable results they achieved thereafter.

What is going for them is that local conditions like weather and food are similar to back home and they expect a big band of travelling fans as organisers said at least 10 chartered flights will touch down Armenia from Guatemala.

Defender Emmanuel Anyanwu, who has a slight hamstring problem, as well as Terry Envoh both trained with the rest of the group Thursday after training apart for the last two days.

There are not expected to be major changes from the team who won the African Youth Championship in South Africa two months ago except for Kenneth Omeruo returning as libero.

The only notable absentee would be Asec Mimosas striker Olanrewaju Kayode, who will serve out a one-match ban after he was sent off in the AYC final against Cameroon.