NIGERIA will battle Liberia for a place at the 2013 AFCON with special boots for astro turf pitches next month, officials have revealed.

Chairman of the technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Chris Green, informed MTNFootball.com that kit sponsors will ship in special boots meant for artificial turf for the September 8 clash in Monrovia.

This follows a recent meeting in Germany with the NFF leadership and also comes at a time when coach Stephen Keshi has expressed some concerns about how his foreign-based pros may struggle on the synthetic pitch in Liberia.

“The Eagles will get special boots meant for playing on astro turf for their match in Liberia next month,” Green told MTNFootball.com.

The national team will also be the first to get customised boots and kits from their kit sponsors.

“We have also reached an agreement where adidas will also kit our players on individual basis, where their playing uniforms will be designed on a player-by-player basis.

“The sponsors will for instance take the sole of a player’s feet and design a football boot specially for such a player.”

This innovation is expected to improve the performance of the players.

In February, most of the Eagles foreign pros struggled to come to terms with the artificial pitch in Rwanda for a 2013 Nations Cup qualifier while the players from the Nigeria Premier League shone as they are used to playing on such a surface on the local scene.

Keshi has said he hopes to closely observe his overseas stars in training on the astro turf in Abuja leading to the trip to Liberia next month.

Comments (0)

Show/hide comments

Show/hide comment form

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment