Flying Eagles are waiting for the approval from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) for their training trip to Egypt ahead of their CAF U20 African Nations Cup in 2023 Nigeriasoccernet.com gathered.
Speaking to BSN Sports, one of the coaching crew of the 2022 WAFU U20 Champions on Tuesday confirmed that he visited the Secretariat (Sunday Dankaro House) to follow-up on the letter waiting for approval from the federation.
"Yes, we are supposed to travel to Egypt in January, 2023 to engage in at least three friendly matches and also to acclamatise before moving to the venue of the competition.
"We dropped our initial European training plans because we consider Egypt where the tournament will hold a better option to acclamatise before the AFCON finals for better results.
Ladan Bosso’s side started preparations for the biennial competition in Abuja last week Monday.
The team have engaged in three friendlies against local sides, winning all and scored 17 goals without conceding any.
“The team enjoyed a good advantage at the WAFU qualifiers when they arrived ahead of time in Niger and played two warm-up games against the host country," Top NFF official told the same outlet.
He added, "In a deliberate attempt to make the team succeed, the National Teams Task Force put together an extended training camp in Egypt before the kick off of the AFCON in Egypt."
Egypt will host the U-20 AFCON from February 18 to March 12, 2023.
The top four teams will join 24 other countries at the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia.
Hosts Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Gambia, Uganda, Benin, Zambia, South Sudan and Mozambique have qualified for the 12-team tournament.