Rio Olympics: I’m not thinking about Brazil —Siasia

NIGERIA’S U-23 coach, Samson Siasia has said his main preoccupation remains the last group game against Colombia and not Brazil as likely opponents in the knockout stage.

The Dream Team in the early hours of Monday in Manaus, pipped Sweden 1-0 courtesy of Sadiq Umar’s 40th minute goal to land in the quarter-final of the men’s Rio Olympics football tournament.

Siasia while speaking at the post match conference said he could only take one game at a time.

“I think for me and the boys all we are doing now is taking it a game at a time, we are not bothered about the team we will be playing in the quarter-finals, let’s play Colombia first and from there we will think of our opponents at that stage.

“The issue of the team I will prefer to play in the quarter-final doesn’t arise now; what is uppermost in my mind is getting my boys focused for every game,” the former Super Eagles coach said.

The former international stated that the technical crew has been able to address the leaky defence of the reigning African champions, as reflected in the game against Sweden.

“As you all can see, my defence line didn’t concede any goal (against Sweden), yes myself and my technical crew worked very hard to correct all the lapses we noticed in our first game (against Japan) and I am happy my boys stood their ground and kept a clean sheet today. All I can say for now is that it’s work in progress,” said the man who coached Nigeria to win silver at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Nigeria will face Colombia at the Arena Corinthians, Sao Paulo, tomorrow in the last group game which serves as a mere formality game for the Dream Team having booked ticket to the next stage after two previous wins.