{"id":164501,"date":"2025-05-27T15:54:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T14:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago"},"modified":"2025-05-27T16:59:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T15:59:39","slug":"nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria aim to defend trophy, beat Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>The stage is all set for the 2025 Unity Cup taking place in London as Nigeria aims to defend the trophy they won in the past.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Trinidad &amp; Tobago will take to the centre stage from Tuesday 27 to Saturday 31 May at the Gtech Community Stadium as the Unity Cup returns for the first time since 2004.<\/p>\n<p>The Unity Cup is an Afro-Caribbean international football tournament which was last held in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Jamaica will face Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night, while Nigeria will tackle Ghana on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>The winners of both fixtures will clash in the final on Saturday, while the losing teams will battle for third place.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria are the current holders of the Unity Cup as they won the last edition, beating the Republic of Ireland 3-0 in the final 21 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The Super Eagles may start this year\u2019s Unity Cup as favourites given their FIFA ranking and recent performances.<\/p>\n<p>But the form of Eric Chelle\u2019s side doesn\u2019t matter when playing their West African rivals Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>Among the four teams in the tournament, Nigeria is the highest-ranked team in FIFA\u2019s world rankings in 44th position.<\/p>\n<p>Behind Nigeria is Jamaica in 62nd position, followed by Ghana in 77th, and Trinidad &amp; Tobago in 102nd.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with DAILY POST about the 2025 Unity Cup, Saheed Afolabi, who works at Clear TV, advised Nigeria coach, Eric Chelle to use the tournament as an avenue to test new players and prepare his team for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>Afolabi also insisted that all the teams are capable of winning the tournament this year.<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cThe Unity Cup is going to be a tough battle between the four teams.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the four teams have chances of winning the tournament. But one thing Nigeria or the coach [Chelle] should focus on the possibility of not playing to win but rather look at it from the competitive angle of the players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause this should serve as a good preparatory note for the Super Eagles players to test the local home-based players playing in the NPFL and to also know the areas where the team need to improve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGladly we have some foreign-based players that would be joining the nine invited home-based players. So I think the focus should be more on how to improve the team rather not winning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause if we say we want to win, fine we are playing to win also but the focus should be more on how to improve the team psychologically and also prepare the team ahead for the crucial World Cup qualifiers because Nigeria have to win their remaining World Cup qualifiers or else they won\u2019t qualify.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause at this time the Super Eagles are now at the edge of not qualifying for the World Cup. They are down in the table and any slip they won\u2019t qualify.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey actually put themselves in that position so I believe the Unity Cup should serve as the goal post to rebrand the Super Eagles and also pave the way for some home-based players to be part of the senior team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can never say they won\u2019t gel together because the same thing happened in the 2013 AFCON where some home-based players led by the late Stephen Keshi won the AFCON in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I think we need to bring in more home-based players to the team and let\u2019s see how we are going to do wonders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe focus should not be on winning the Unity Cup but rather on preparing and branding the Super Eagles to be a formidable force in the world of football,\u201d Afolabi stated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The stage is all set for the 2025 Unity Cup taking place in London as Nigeria aims to defend the trophy they won in the past. Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Trinidad &amp; Tobago will take to the centre stage from Tuesday 27 to Saturday 31 May at the Gtech Community Stadium as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":164500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[711,17495,254,17494,17458],"class_list":["post-164501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-ghana","tag-jamaica","tag-nigeria","tag-trinidad-and-tobago","tag-unity-cup"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nigeria aim to defend trophy, beat Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The stage is all set for the 2025 Unity Cup taking place in London as Nigeria aims to defend the trophy they won in the ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nigeria aim to defend trophy, beat Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The stage is all set for the 2025 Unity Cup taking place in London as Nigeria aims to defend the trophy they won in the ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-27T14:54:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-27T15:59:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/05\/sm_1748349035.881292.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Nigeria aim to defend trophy, beat Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-27T14:54:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-05-27T15:59:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago\"},\"wordCount\":629,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/05\/sm_1748349035.881292.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Ghana\",\"Jamaica\",\"Nigeria\",\"Trinidad and Tobago\",\"Unity Cup\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/nigeria-aim-to-defend-trophy-beat-ghana-jamaica-trinidad-and-tobago\",\"name\":\"Nigeria aim to defend trophy, beat Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago - 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