By Eche Amos

Former player of Nasarawa United Football Club, Abubakar Aliyu Ibrahim, has told players of the Lafia based Nigerian Professional Football League outfit to be hardworking and dedicated in their football career if they must go further in the round leather game.

Abu Korea as the player is fondly called, disclosed this to Nasarawa United Media shortly after the team’s training session at the Lafia City Stadium, on Saturday, where he also took part.

“The players should work hard, remain focused,be disciplined, and listen to their coaches’ instructions as much as they can to get out of the zone they find themselves currently”, he began.

The striker who spent two seasons with Nasarawa United between 2012 and 2014 before joining Kano Pillars, and later Club Athlétique Bizertin of Tunisia before proceeding to Hamarkameratene(Hamkam) of Norway, said he decided to take advantage of his short vacation in Nigeria to check on his former employers(Nasarawa United) and to know how they are fairing.

“When I was with Nasarawa United, I had a great rapport with everyone in the team, and observing my vacation, I felt I should come and see those who made it easy for me to travel out for greener pasture

“From their play, how they behave and the bond that binds them, I think if they(players) keep to all these, they will go far, both in the league and continental football”, he optimistically opined.

Abu who recently signed a one-year deal with Ki Klaksvik, a top division club side in Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, Northwest Europe, took time out to visit the family of his former teammate and late captain of Nasarawa United, Baba Idriss, in Lafia, where he offset the one-year tuition fee of the late player’s six-year-old son, Abdullahi Idriss, who is in Primary Two, a philanthropic gesture formerly carried out by another former team-mate of Baba Idriss and current Coordinator of Nasarawa United, Adamu Musa.

Desirous to make global impact, Abu Korea revealed to Nasarawa United Media that he is working hard to become one of the best players in the world, and his target with his new Danish club is to help them pick one of the UEFA Champions League tickets when the qualifiers begin in earnest.