{"id":52253,"date":"2026-02-08T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=52253"},"modified":"2026-02-08T12:01:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:01:18","slug":"petkovic-nigeria-is-a-respected-and-strong-opponent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=52253","title":{"rendered":"Petkovic: Nigeria is a Respected and Strong Opponent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>National coach Vladimir Petkovic confirmed that the Nigerian national team, scheduled to face them tomorrow, Saturday, in the quarter-finals of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, is a respected and strong opponent.<\/p>\n<p>During a press conference held alongside captain Mahrez in Marrakech, Petkovic stated that the match against Nigeria would be difficult for both sides.<\/p>\n<p>The coach added that the focus has been primarily on recovery due to the short interval between matches, noting that he will decide which players are ready following today&#8217;s final training session.<\/p>\n<p>He continued: &#8220;We are facing some challenges, such as injuries. We do not yet know if Bennacer will participate, and Tougai is injured and has not fully recovered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In conclusion, Petkovic emphasized that the focus will be on ensuring the defense is as strong as the attack.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>Reference: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sabqpress.dz\/%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%aa%d9%83%d9%88%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b4-%d9%85%d9%86%d8%aa%d8%ae%d8%a8-%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d9%85%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%81%d8%b3-%d9%85%d8%ad%d8%aa%d8%b1%d9%85-%d9%88\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">link<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National coach Vladimir Petkovic confirmed that the Nigerian national team, scheduled to face them tomorrow, Saturday, in the quarter-finals of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, is a respected and strong opponent. During a press conference held alongside captain Mahrez in Marrakech, Petkovic stated that the match against Nigeria would be difficult for both sides. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}