Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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Posted by
Daring
JOHN HIS MARKS, GET SET...
Posted on: Wed 16 Jul 2008
A week into his return to pre-season training and just days away from the first match action in China, John Mikel Obi is feeling good.
Even with some of the youngest legs in the squad, our 21-year-old midfielder is feeling the benefit of several days worth of double sessions, as well as little decline in fitness over a short holiday that for the Nigerian, only started on 22 June.
While Euro 2008 was hogging the limelight, Africa was quietly going about its World Cup qualification way, with four matches in rapid succession for each nation. One result was Nigeria becoming the first to make it through to the second qualifying stage.
'I am very happy we won all our games and now we have a very good chance to qualify for the World Cup,' Mikel says as he looks back to last month.
'We went through very quickly. Winning all four is not easy but the goals kept coming and we had great games. I was sick for one game, with malaria,
but then I recovered, came back to training and in for 30 minutes of the last game.'
Included in the sequence of wins over Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone was one over South Africa, the scheduled hosts of the 2010 World Cup despite lingering speculation there could still be a change of venue.
'The South African people are confident it is going to be held there,' reckons Mikel. 'That is going to be good for the African countries especially but first we have to make sure we get there.
'It is going to a great tournament, it is the dream of everyone to play in a World Cup and it would be my first so hopefully we make it.'
'I got a few days holiday after the qualifiers,' he reports.
'I went to see my family and when I was at home, I was watching the Euros. All credit to Spain, they played very good football and they deserved to win it.
'Since then I have been working my socks off. Pre-season has been really different, we have been doing a lot of running but it is good, it gets you ready mentally and physically.'
This is his third pre-season at Chelsea but unlike the two previous, he will be jetting east rather than to the USA for match practice.
'I haven't been to China or Malaysia and the culture there is different so I can't wait to see it and experience it.
'I know they love football a lot so we have to make sure we give them what they want to see.'
Posted by
Daring
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