THE national Under-23 team will begin the final phase of its camping for the Morocco 2011 African U-23 Championship in its Accra camp today.The team's 35-man delegation, comprising 26 players and nine officials, arrived in Accra on Saturday, but the Chief Coach, Austin Eguavoen, who did not travel with the first batch, is expected to join the team today.Eguavoen had last week visited the team's Lizzy Sports Complex camp to assess the facilities in the camp.Coach Stanley Eguma, who led the delegation to Accra on Saturday, described the camp as adequate for the team's needs, saying, 'this is a good camping facility, the environment is excellent and with over six training pitches and flood lights; we will be able to try out a lot of techniques in the next ten days.'The Olympic Eagles observed yesterday as rest day with field work scheduled to begin this morning.The team, drawn in group A of the CAF U-23 championship with host, Morocco, Algeria and Senegal is expected to spend 10 days in Accra before heading for Morocco on November 17 for acclimatization.The 26 home-based players named by Eguavoen for the third and final phase camping of the team would be joined by their 16 foreign-based counterparts before the journey to Morocco.Eguavoen believes that preparing the home-based players adequately would prepare the team for the challenges of the African championship.The team's Media Officer, Arafat Aliu, quotes Eguavoen as saying that 'We do not want to take chances with European club sporting directors. We want to be prepared for any unforeseen situation. In any case all our actions are in line with the programme approved by the Federation.'He added, 'invitation letters have been sent and we await the clubs response putting into consideration that we have a November 16 deadline to forward our final 21-man list for the championship.'The players in the Accra camp are goalkeepers Dele Ajiboye, Olufemi Thomas, and Theophilus Afelokhai.Others are Bunde Hungwe, Emmanuel Anyanwu, Kingsley Udoh, Papa Idris, Akas Chima, Eneji Otekpa, Atu Irumekhai, Ayo Saka, Osas Okoro, Odah Onoriode, and Usman Amoda.Also in the camp are Gbolahan Salami, Oseni Ganiyu, Nwadialu Sunday, Semiu Laidi, Afolabi Abdulwaheed, Bernard Ovoke, Ojobo Markson, Ibok Edet, Fabiyi Babinton, Rasheed Olabiyi, Ezenwaka Ugonna, and Francis Ikechukwu.
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