The head coach of Nigeria senior handball team, Rafiu Salami has expressed delight over Nigeria first win at the 2020 Africa Nation’s Cup in Tunisia.
Nigeria eventually recorded her first win by beat Libya 31-24 goals after losing their first two matches against Angola and Gabon.
Salami told www.aclsports.com that the current crop of players paraded in the national team can spring out surprised if kept together for a long period of time.
He said, “It is a pleasure winning the first game at the nation’s cup. Like I said earlier, we came here to try to take a slot for the world championship unfortunately for different reasons; we could not achieve our goal.
“What I think is that the team is playing very well and I knew that the first victory will come and it came against Libya”.
He further said, “Looking at the current crop of players in the team, I will say that they are young talented players and my idea was to come and put in place a game project that will make us compete with the good countries in Africa.
“If we continue to work this way, we are on the right path and everything will go well. Unfortunately for us generally, Nigerians wants results now and I think with time, we will have better results for the team”.
Commenting on the player of the match adjudged to Farouk Yusuf, Salami said the young player has the potential of becoming one of the best players to come out of Africa.
He said, “I have always said Farouk Yusuf is going to be a fantastic player, looking at his age and the potentials he has. I spoke with the president that all he has to do is protect him and make sure he does not get too enticed with money at his youthful age.
“With time, I am optimistic that he will be one of the best players to be produced in Africa. France has their own Mbappe in football we also have our own Mbappe in handball so we have to do all we can to protect him.
“As of this moment, we are third in our group and will face Guinea today (Monday) by 4pm because we will play from the 9th to 12th place”.
