Nigerian team for Beach Soccer World Cup unveiled

The Nigerian team for the upcoming FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup has been made public by the country’s Football Federation.

Twelve players were picked by the team’s coach, Audu Adamu, ahead of the tournament, which runs from November 16-22 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

Leading the list of players expected to put up an impressive performance at the 16-team tournament is the team’s skipper, Isiaka Olawale, who plays for Globacom Premier League side Lobi Stars, and who emerged the lead scorer at the last African Beach Soccer Championship in South Africa.

Also included along with the 26-year-old Olawale are the experienced goalkeeping duo of John Gaadi and Isa Abdullahi.

Ogbonnaya Okemiri, the one-eyed defender who was a member of the historic Enyimba of Aba team that won the 2003 CAF Champions League title at the expense of Egypt’s Ismaily, also made the squad alongside Jonathan Nsoke, Azeez Abu, Victor Tale, Timothy Ameh, Suleiman Usman, Babatunde Ariyo and prolific scorer Gabriel Agu.

Completing the list is the experienced Ikechukwu Ibenegbu, who, in 2006, finished the season as the leading scorer in the Nigerian top flight division and who was also a member of the Nigerian team to both the 2006 and 2007 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

From Rio to Dubai

Olawale and Abdullahi were also at both tournaments where Nigeria’s best performance to date was in 2007 when they lost in the quarter finals to Uruguay. It was the first only loss of the tournament for a side who a year earlier failed to make it out of the first round.

Nigeria, however, failed to qualify for last year’s championship in Marseille, France following a poor outing at the African Championships but they head into this year’s event as African champions and will be competing out of Group D alongside defending champions,Brazil, Switzerland and a yet to be determined qualifier from the Asian continent which won’t be known until the end of the Asian qualifying tournament on November 11.

The Nigerian team has been training in Dubai for the past one week and will remain there ahead of their opening match against three-time champions Brazil on November 16.

A total of 16 teams will be competing at this year’s edition of the tournament which got underway in 2005 in Brazil. A French team captained by former Manchester United captain Eric Cantona, were the inaugural winners of the championship but they won’t be present in Dubai after losing out to Italy in the European qualifying tournament held in June in Spain.