Abara rates Niger Tornadoes’ winning mentality high

.As Ikoh Allah beat MFM to extend unbeaten run

By Taofeek Babalola

Niger Tornadoes technical adviser Hamza Abara says his pep talk with players when he took charge of the team is yielding a positive result, SportingLife reports.    

Abara, who was the club’s former chief Coach was named as a replacement to Erasmus Onu as the technical adviser, due to the club’s dwindling performances in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) this season.

Abara led Ikoh Allah to a 1-0 victory against Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries FC of Lagos in a matchday 19 encounter in Minna on Sunday.

The win over MFM made it nine matches without a loss since he took over the mantle of the leadership of the team, winning five matches and drawing 4.

The young coach added that most of his lads are new to the top flight football, making it difficult for them to adapt with new system.  

“The recruitment had been done before I took over the team and there was no time to get new players, which means we have to wait until mid-transfer window before we bring in new players to fortify the team. Majority of these players are from Nigeria National League (NNL) and amateur teams and they were used to that system. So when I took over I have to change their mentality and told them that they can’t play under one coach for life,” Abara told SportingLife.

He added: “Initially, it was difficult for them to change to the new system but with enough talks with them they are now gradually getting use to our system. Even under Coach Erasmus, he was just unlucky that the results were not coming then, but he tried his best too. When I was working under him, I discovered that the players found it difficult to cope with his style of play but I have to change their mentality when I took over. We have not achieved anything yet because I still believe that there are more things to be done to reach our target.” 

Speaking on the MFM game, Abara said: “We have studied their style played and we worked on it before the game and we got the result. We had to play them on counter-attack and it worked for us.”