Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi has explained why he wants the African champions to use the United States as their pre-World Cup training base.
Football officials had previously floated the idea of training in Argentina, Colombia or the United States.
But Keshi says he has refined the list to two American cities, Miami or Houston, because they are likely to have similar weather as Sao Paulo, the Brazilian city where the Super Eagles will be based during the World Cup.
As Nigeria hopes to begin their World Cup training in May, 2014, Keshi said: “I have proposed that we camp in the United States because by the time we would be opening our camping the US would have the same weather as Brazil,” Keshi said.
“There are several US cities that would be hot like Brazil and would have the same temperature (as) Sao Paolo”.
He specifically identified Miami and Houston, which has a large Nigerian community.
Meanwhile, Japan will most likely be one of Nigeria’s pre-tournament friendly opponents after they expressed a desire to test their readiness against the Eagles.
“While in Brazil for the draw, I was told Japan were interested in playing us, but I would also like to play countries like Peru,” Keshi said.
“Considering the countries we have in our group, I would love the Eagles to play countries from the region that have the same playing style”, he added.
The Eagles will play their first round group matches against Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iran at next year’s World Cup.