As the World football governing body, FIFA hold the draws for the final qualifying stage of the 2010 World Cup at its headquarters in Zurich tomorrow many Nigerian soccer stakeholders are already apprehensive and eager to know who Nigeria’s opponents will be.
They are curious to know whether the present squad of the Super Eagles will be able to survive the heat and the fire power of other countries when the second phase begins.
There have been fears in the nation’s soccer circles that Nigeria may be drawn along side top football countries as Egypt, Cameroon, Ghana and Coted’Ivoire. These countries are deemed to be Nigeria’s ‘enemies’ in continental football at the moment.
The Nigerian football followers expect that the star studded Eagles should work harder and distinguish themselves by winning matches involving these countries.
The country’s national team failed to participate in the Germany 2006 World Cup because they could not qualify. Of course, nobody wants history to repeat itself rather the Eagles should be able to live up to their billings this time.
But one regrettable issue is that despite the fact that the Eagles succeeded in maintaining a 100 per cent record, winning all their matches in the first phase of the qualifiers, the present squad of the Eagles is not as formidable as the 1994 team handled by Clemence Westerhof.
Some of the departments still have problems. Take a look at the outside left, midfield and the defence which are not good enough. The national team do not have good left footers to operate from the left wing.
Agreed, that these days in football, a pattern which is called ‘square play’ is widely being adopted but we should not forget that Nigerian teams excel or perform well courtesy of wing play.
This ought to be the work of the Chief Coach, Amodu Shaibu who should search for such creative players for these department.
If he is able to do so by fortifying these departments then the Eagles might be able to overcome other big teams in Africa should they meet during the rest qualifier matches.
Conversely, if he is unable to achieve the next goals and the Eagles fail in their matches particularly those against the bigger football powers in the continent, then such countries will psychologically continue to be a threat.
And this will not be healthy development for our football.
The players must be committed and more patriotic for the country to have a ‘killer squad’ with a mental capacity to conquer other African countries at any given time.
Twenty African countries, Nigeria, Cameroon, Guinea, Coted Ivoire, Mozambique, Morocco, Malawi, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Kenya, Zambia, Togo, Sudan, Mali, Gabon, Ghana, Algeria, Benin and Rwanda are expected to struggle for the ticket to the 2010 World Cup after the draws.
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