Flying Eagles coach John Obuh speaks on his team’s warm-up game against Rwanda in Kigali as well as his thoughts going into the all-important 2013 African Youth Championship qualifier in Tanzania on Sunday.

Coach Obuh, what are your impressions from the warm-up game against Rwanda?

Honestly, it was a good game because the team performed better than we did in our final tune-up games against ABS and Kaduna United before we left Nigeria.

I saw a better and much more confident team against Rwanda despite the fact we eventually lost the game.
I was impressed with the way we took the game to our opponents as our runs on and off the ball got us to create many chances.

We took shots on target with one or two of them being saved, while others narrowly missed target.

I am equally encouraged by the determination of the boys.

I am even more confident of this team now and had we taken the chances we created, we would have won.

The real test will be the 2013 African Youth Championship qualifier in Tanzania on Sunday. What are your thoughts?

We need to score goals and win the match. If we had taken our chances against Rwanda, we would have easily won 1-0, 2-0 or at worst drawn the game.

But again if we had won, it could also have worked against us because the players may now think they have arrived before our important qualifier.

I believe the pain of the loss in Rwanda will propel the team to go all out and win in Tanzania.

What information do you have about the Ngorogoro Stars of Tanzania?

Rwanda have given us a little glimpse of what to expect from Tanzania because they are both from the same Central and East African sub-region.

I also spoke to the Rwanda coach Richard Tardy after our game and he gave me a few tips as well because his team beat Tanzania twice in Tanzania recently.