Preliminary Round 2 qualifier2013 Nations Cup must for Eagles - Yobo

Super Eagles’ skipper, Joseph Yobo, has
reiterated his team's determination to make
the 2013 Nations Cup a must after Nigeria
crashed out in the qualifying race for the
2012 edition in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
The Fenerbhace player said Eagles would do
everything to redeem their image by scaling
the first hurdle in the 2013 Nations Cup
preliminary Round 2 qualifier against
Rwanda next year. Yobo, who is yet to
overcome the shock of not qualifying after
the Guinea 2-2 draw in Abuja recently, said he
would strive to make the disappointment a
thing of the past, depending on the calibre of
technical crew expected to handle the team.
Only few days a go, coach Samson Siasia was
dismissed by the Nigeria Football Federation,
(NFF) over poor performance and with its
intention to hire the former skipper of the
team, Stephen Keshi, as his replacement.
Yobo is already looking forward with great
optimism to see Nigeria out of its present
predicament and forge ahead in the
series.“We have been thought many lessons
by our opponents in recent times. The
smallest country can surprise you. All the
same, we should put our failure to qualify for
the 2012 edition behind us and move ahead in
the competition,”he said.
Last Thursday, Yobo led his Turkish club,
Fenerbahce, to play a 2-2 draw away duel with
Besiktas to still maintain its number one
position on the table. With 18 points from 8
matches, Fenerbahce is billed to tackle
Kardemir Karabukspor today, to further
amass the 3 points at stake to lead
Trabsonspor and Orduspor the two clubs
contesting number one spot with Yobo's team.
Meanwhile, the Nations Cup two rounds of
matches will be played to reach the
tournament, and teams which failed to
qualify for the 2012 edition will have to
negotiate one extra round of qualifiers.Hosts
South Africa qualify automatically.
With the Super Eagles failing to qualify for
the 2012 edition, the country joins 45 other
teams which will have to play an additional
round of games. The 16 teams that qualified
for the 2012 edition get an automatic ticket
from the first two rounds and enter directly
in the final round of qualifiers that begins
after Next year's tournament.
The draw was conducted Friday by the sub-
committee of the Africa Cup of Nations
organising committee in Malabo.
The matches are to be played in the first half
of 2012 with exact dates to be communicated
later.