In just a little over about twenty-four hours, the Super Eagles of Nigeria will start their Russia 2018 adventure against Croatia at the Kaliningrad Stadium. Carrying the hope of 180 million Nigerians on their back- not to talk of all the citizens of the world that have adopted up courtesy of our record-breaking jerseys- the Eagles will hope for a great game in front of thirty-five thousand fans at the stadium.
Since they touched down in Russia during the week, they’ve been lodged at the cozy Essenntuki base and travelled to Kaliningrad yesterday.
Media Alert.
Our training session today starts at 10.15am.
It will be open for the first 15 minutes only.
Ahead of our #WorldCup opener vs #CRO on Saturday, we will be departing Essentuki for Kaliningrad at 3.55pm today.#SoarSuperEagles #Team9jaStrong. pic.twitter.com/BY3oRQtpvq— 🇳🇬 Super Eagles (@NGSuperEagles) June 14, 2018
Eagles’ Bus ready to hit the Kaliningrad stadium for training #SoarSuperEagles #Team9jaStrong pic.twitter.com/gFhcqeDWe7
— 🇳🇬 Super Eagles (@NGSuperEagles) June 15, 2018
But here’s the shocking fact: Kaliningrad is an astonishing 2900 kilometres and a five-hour flight from Essentuki! It gets more incredible when one considers that the team will fly back after the game and once more for their other group matches.
The game against Iceland will hold next Friday at Volgograd- only 635 kilometres away and then play Argentina in St. Petersburg, another 2300 kilometres to the west, making 11,326 in total. If the Super Eagles then proceed to the knockout stages, the players are going to collect a few more thousand air miles.
At an area mass of 12 million square kilometres, Russia is the largest country in the world, spanning much of the European and Asian continents. The country also has eleven time zones. The entire African continent only has six.
There’s no doubt that the Nigerian football team has its work cut out for it but if there’s any group capable of beating all the odds, it is definitely the Super Eagles of Nigeria.