Kano Pillars coach, Ibrahim Musa has stated that he would prefer the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium in Bauchi as Pillars’ base for their home games in the CAF Confederation Cup than the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna because the former’s artificial turf is more likely to bring out the “best of Pillars”.
Pillars will be unable to host matches at their traditional home ground, the Sani Abacha Stadium, which has been temporarily repurposed as a Covid-19 isolation center.
In a chat with brila.net, Musa stated that, the club’s management is currently evaluating the suitability of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium in Bauchi and the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna as alternative home grounds for Pillars’ continental campaign and club chairman Surajo Shuaibu Yahaya recently secured the approval of sports ministry officials in Kaduna for Pillars to play at the Ahmadu Bello.
He noted further that, the stadium’s unfamiliar natural grass playing surface might not be best suited to his team’s playing style which is more suited to the artificial turf at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium.
Musa highlighted his players’ struggles at certain grounds with natural grass pitches in the NPFL as proof that playing in Kaduna might not bode well for them.
“I’ll only advise [the Kano State government and the club chairman], I prefer Bauchi because our ground is like Bauchi, so the Kaduna training pitch is natural grass, we’re not used to the natural grass,”
“You can’t see the best of Pillars if we go to a pitch that is not good. But I don’t think Kaduna will be good during rainy season [but] if we are playing our CAF champions league in the dry season, we may get the best of it but a bad pitch, we can’t see the best of Pillars.
“If we were training normally [on a surface] like the Ahmadu Bello pitch, we can’t have problem, but our ground [at] the Sani Abacha is artificial ground and Bauchi is artificial ground, so, we are used to that.
“So, anywhere we go, if you have bad pitch you can’t see the best of Pillars. That’s why when go to [grounds] like Ifeanyiubah, Abia Warriors the pitch is natural grass so it’s not good [and] we [can’t] be at our best. We are just managing.”
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