"First of all, we respect Nigeria for all that they made till now in Africa football. Nigeria is a powerful team, have player's play in big clubs. I even voted for Victor Osimhen as the best player in the world. Lookman is a good player, gave a wonderful performance for Atalanta in the league," words of Angola's coach, Pedro Goncalves during his pre-match conference on Thursday morning, Nigeriasoccernet.com can report.
Billed to take on Nigeria in the quarterfinal of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinal, coach Pedro Goncalves who seems to know all Nigeria players is unmoved by their level of professionalism as he believes his players will match them in every area tomorrow.
"I guess they've found the best strategy and formation to play in the AFCON from game to game. I know Zaidu because he plays in Portugal, the midfield guys, the front with Osimhen, Moses, they're really powerful team. They also have some issues where we plan to create difficulties for them," he said.
"This is a big opportunity for us. Once in a career. We're motivated for the game. All the power, the thoughts and all the strength of millions of millions of Angolans will be on the pitch.
"We do not focus only on a player, we'll focus on the whole team, he added on tomorrow's opposition.
Speaking about his team and what they we want to achieve both in tomorrow's game and the tournament as a whole, Pedro said:
"All the players if we get to this stage of the competition, we're not afraid of any team. Although there is a drop in our performance but tomorrow is an opportunity for us to peak.
"We want to be immortal and one of the ways to become that is too get to the final.
"I know the national team of Nigeria might be more fragile than we. The most important thing is we're ready to face Nigeria. In our squad we've organized a lot of meetings, channeled towards correcting our mistakes. We do not have any dispute with our opponents and we've trained our mindset to use our strategies," he concluded.
Angola will hope they can continue their sweet AFCON run when they face tournament's present favorite Nigeria at the Stade de Felix Houphouet-Boigny Abidjan tomorrow by 6pm Nigerian time.
By Oluwayemi Omolagba