{"id":1611,"date":"2019-05-09T12:43:37","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T11:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathematical7.com\/m7\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2019-07-11T23:34:32","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T22:34:32","slug":"afcon-2019-daily-diary-day-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathematical7.com\/m7\/afcon-2019-daily-diary-day-18\/","title":{"rendered":"AFCON 2019 DAILY DIARY – Day 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

Goodbye Alexandria.\u00a0 Welcome, Cairo.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened to the\u00a0Super Eagles\u00a0<\/i><\/b>yesterday.\u00a0 The team departed Alexandria, the city that had been home to them since their arrival in Egypt almost three weeks ago, in a sea of emotions. A crowd of hotel staff and guests of the very big\u00a0Helena Palestine hotel <\/b>had lined up to cheer the players, wish them well and bid them goodbye as they drove out of the premises and out of the town.\u00a0\u00a0There was an equally large crowd of people on the streets cheering and waving as their bus drove through Cairo.\u00a0 Staff and excited guests of Le Meridien Heliopolis\u00a0<\/i><\/b>Hotel,\u00a0<\/i><\/b>their new abode hopefully till the end of the championship, were also waiting to give them a warm welcome.<\/p>\n

Egyptians appear to be quickly readjusting and moving on with their lives after the disaster of the exit of their national team that has imploded with resignations and sack of personnel and administrators.\u00a0 There is a feast of football in the country and Egyptians are demonstrating their passion and love for football by shifting allegiances and support to other teams.\u00a0\u00a0Nigeria may already be benefitting from this.\u00a0 South Africa that defeated the Pharaoh\u2019s may pay the price of their success by facing an embittered audience of Egyptian fans when they enter the\u00a0Cairo International Stadium\u00a0<\/i><\/b>tomorrow evening for another date with the team that they could not defeat in any competitive match for well over two decades, until they broke the jinx in a qualifying match of this same tournament two years ago by defeating a very weak Eagles teams at home in Nigeria, very easily and very clearly.\u00a0\u00a0It is that singular victory over the\u00a0Super Eagles\u00a0<\/i><\/b>that will psychologically propel them to even imagine the possibility of a repeat here on neutral ground.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the\u00a0Bafana Bafana\u00a0<\/i><\/b>know that tomorrow\u2019s match will be even more difficult than their much-celebrated historic conquest of the Pharaoh\u2019s a few days ago.\u00a0\u00a0Gernot Rohr is also aware of the situation \u2013 his survival as coach beyond July 21 depends on every single match left in this championship. He must win them all and bring the trophy to Nigeria or not survive.\u00a0\u00a0He is determined not to lose any time as a result of the movement between the cities.\u00a0\u00a0Although they had a light training session in Alexandria before their departure, the team did not waste any time before going for a full session of one and a half hours of training at their new training base, the\u00a0Sham Sports Club<\/i><\/b>, a magnificent private sports club not far from the hotel.\u00a0 The session closed to the public and the media.\u00a0\u00a0The good news in the Nigerian camp is that the entire squad of 23 players trained.\u00a0 All the players have been restored to fitness by the hardworking medical team.\u00a0 The healing process has also been hastened by the new spirit in camp following the victory over Cameroon.\u00a0 Every player now wants to play, including those that had been previously psychologically depressed by their performance against Madagascar, whose success since then has become vindication for the affected players that the Madagascan team is not as weak as was assumed after the defeat.\u00a0 24 hours to the crunch match tomorrow, the \u2018rituals\u2019 of isolation, closed training sessions, no media, and prayer sessions have already begun. The match against South Africa is not taken lightly at all.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0Super Eagles\u00a0<\/i><\/b>have tasted the bitter pill of inability to deal with the\u00a0Bafana Bafana\u00a0<\/i><\/b>in their last two encounters.\u00a0\u00a0It is that huge mountain that they have to climb again tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\n

Segun Odegbami<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Goodbye Alexandria.\u00a0 Welcome, Cairo.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened to the\u00a0Super Eagles\u00a0yesterday.\u00a0 The team departed Alexandria, the city that had been home to them since their arrival in Egypt almost three weeks ago, in a sea of emotions. A crowd of hotel staff and guests of the very big\u00a0Helena Palestine hotel had lined up to cheer the players, wish them well and bid them goodbye as they drove out of the premises and out of the town.\u00a0\u00a0There was an equally large crowd of people on the streets cheering and waving as their bus drove through Cairo.\u00a0 Staff and excited guests of Le Meridien Heliopolis\u00a0Hotel,\u00a0their new abode hopefully till the end of the championship, were also waiting to give them a warm welcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-afcon-2019-daily-diary"],"gutentor_comment":0,"yoast_head":"\nAFCON 2019 DAILY DIARY - Day 18 - Mathematical 7<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mathematical7.com\/m7\/afcon-2019-daily-diary-day-18\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AFCON 2019 DAILY DIARY - Day 18 - Mathematical 7\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Goodbye Alexandria.\u00a0 Welcome, Cairo. 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