African Nations Cup-Super Eagles - Distraught at giving up a last minute goal that cost them qualification to next year's African Nations Cup, Super Eagles players found sleep hard to come by on Saturday night. The squad left for London on Sunday morning ahead of Tuesday's friendly match against Ghana, and most of the squad players and officials alike, looked dreary-eyed

"I couldn't sleep," assistant coach, Simon Kalika said. "I kept thinking about the game and how we let it go."

Obinna Nsofor said it took him until 4am to get some shut-eye

"It was hard to sleep. This is a nightmare for all of us," he said.

Skipper Joseph Yobo was equally infected with the insomnia bug

"It was impossible to sleep. It was almost like I was playing the game over and over again in my head.

"We did everything right until the last minute. We created at least 7 chances, and we should have ended the game in the first half.

"We defended well, we did not allow them to play. But they scored with two chances, especially the second goal when we were pushing for a third goal.

"We want to say sorry to Nigerians. Now we have to pick ourselves up and look forward."

The story was the same with all the other players, as sleep eluded them.

But the team are determined to go some way in making amends in Tuesday's friendly against Ghana.

Meanwhile, Osaze Odemwingie has reacted angrily to, and strongly denied quotes attributed to him in the media on Sunday.

The first claimed that Odemwingie blamed the prophecy by Pastor TB Joshua as affecting the team, while the second quoted the player as saying all the players and officials should be punished.

"I never said anything like that. I said we were aware through the media that he said something concerning that, but it cannot affect us.

"We as usual prayed before every game as a team and there was a pastor there who said something like that but he said we're going to pray and that is not true.

"We did pray, but then we're all human beings, there's half of us who'll say he said that but at the same time we are footballers. We're going to the pitch to do our jobs, we're going to play do our job, score goals. It didn't affect us in any way the way they painted it," Osaze said.

The striker described the second set of quotes claiming that he asked for all the players and officials to be punished as fabrication.

This Day/10/10/2011