The home-based Super Eagles' squad will leave Abuja for Kaduna tomorrow to keep Saturday's date against their counterparts from Cote d'Ivoire in an African Nations Championship (CHAN) qualifier.
The players invited by Coach Stephen Keshi for the two-legged qualifiers started arriving in camp on Sunday.
Yesterday, 23 players out of the 24 invited were in camp and trained in the morning. Only Elkanemi Warriors' Haruna Babalo, who was a late replacement for Tony Okputu of Lobi Stars that recently signed a contract with a Libyan top division side, was not in camp during training.
Similarly, Kano Pillars' Zango Umar did not train with rest of the squad and has been asked to leave camp after scan showed that injury he picked up in his club's last Glo League clash against Dolphins of Port Harcourt would not heal before Saturday.
Eagles' Media Officer, Ben Alaiya, informed National Mirror that Zango's Pillars teammate, Adamu Murtala, has been invited as his replacement.
Monday morning's training featured 22 players and was supervised by Keshi at the training pitch of the Abuja National Stadium.
Keshi told the players before training commenced that they have herculean task of becoming the first set of Nigerians to play in the CHAN tournament in South Africa next year if they can surmount the Ivorian hurdle.
"Let me say I have absolute confidence in you to achieve the feat of defeating Cote d' Ivoire, but you must have belief in yourself more to achieve the set goal," he charged them.
The team will train twice today before departing Abuja for Kaduna tomorrow morning and will resume its build up in the evening in Kaduna for the game scheduled for the Ahmadu Bello Stadium on Saturday.
