BY JOHN EGBOKHAN
Newly signed Torino midfielder, Nnamdi Oduamadi has declared that the national under-23 side were not a bad team, as many Nigerians have quick to declare sequel to their failure to qualify for the football event of the All Africa Games, holding this September in Maputo, Mozambique.

Oduamadi while stating this position after Ghana’s Black Meteors halted Nigeria’s march to the Games on account of technical goals rule in Kumasi, over the weekend, defended the players performance in the grudge game which they lost 2-0, courtesy of strikes from Agyemang Badu and Richard Mpong.

For the former AC Milan midfielder, their loss was due to ill-luck, not poor performance.

“We have lost and that is the end of the story. Football is a game that you can either win or lose. It was unfortunate that we lost to Ghana but it is most unfair for people to say that we did not play well. We did our best but we just did not have the luck to get the goal that would have sealed our qualification.

Nnamdi Oduamadi

“Our team have been doing well up to the 2-0 loss to Ghana so you just know that in this game called football, there are days when no matter how well you try, you just cannot get the needed result. I feel that was what happened to us in Kumasi”, added Oduamadi, who was substituted in the opening minutes of the second half, due to an injury suffered in the first half.

Having been part of the team that crashed out in the second round of the 2009 FIFA under-20 World Cup in Egypt, Oduamadi and his colleagues are being branded as a failure by perceptive Nigerian but Oduamadi feels that they do not fit that tag.

“We are not an almost there team. We are good but in football, some things just happen that you can’t just explain. We are a good side, people should be patient with us and we would get the results in due time. We are still on course for qualification for the Olympic Games”, he said.