The Super Eagles cannot point to insufficient preparation time as a reason for failing to win against the Benin Republic Eagles captain Ahmed Musa has warned.

Both countries have been limited to just one training session apiece ahead of Wednesday’s 5pm 2021 AFCON qualification encounter at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium.

Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr has not hidden his anger at the timing of the fixture but Musa says the team has to accept the situation as it is and deal with it.

The Al-Nassr forward is particularly wary that there’s no repeat of the events when Nigeria opened their 2019 AFCON qualifiers two years ago.

On that occasion in June of 2017, the Super Eagles fell to an embarrassing 2-0 reverse to South Africa in front of the Uyo fans to get their campaign off to a disastrous start.

Such a scenario Musa says, must be avoided at all costs and the 27-year old forward believes Nigeria’s impressive displays in the friendlies against Ukraine and Brazil show that they can get the business done on Wednesday even with a solitary training session.

“We don’t have a choice we have to play,” Musa said in the pre-match conference on Tuesday. “The last game that we lost two or three years ago is gone, this is an important game, you saw the two games that we played we played very good so I think one day to train is enough for us,” Musa said.

“The only thing we have to do is put all our mind that we know the importance of the game and we have to win.

It’s the first game we don’t have to do the same like South Africa so we all know what is important that is why we talk to ourselves that we just have one day to train so we don’t have to give excuses over that.

“So the important thing is that by tomorrow we go out there to show what we have.”