It has been several days now since the Super Eagles shock exit from the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), Cameroon 2021.
No one saw it coming, well, some did. Some warned that we should not get carried away, that the knockout stage is a different ball game when compared to the group stages. A whole lot, the majority just didn’t see that coming, not after the near-perfect display against Egypt. The easy way with which the team took out Sudan and Guinea Bissau. Nigeria finished as the best team in the group stage. No other team made it nine points out of nine as we did. We won all our three first-round matches and we raised the hopes of Nigerians, perhaps, too sky high.
The defeat in the hands of Tunisia was a massive anti-climax. It came with so much disappointment that it became a bitter pill to swallow. How could a team which finished third and struggled to qualify from their group be the one to ease out, no, ease out is not the word, send out, is more like it, oh yes, eliminate is just the perfect word, unfortunately. How could a team with two losses and just one win in the group stage be the ones to progress to the quarter-final while the team with a perfect record going into the match, suddenly, surprisingly and still somewhat unbelievably, became passengers on the next flight out of Cameroon?
Well, congratulations to Tunisia. Better luck Nigeria in subsequent outings. Well, that brings us to the business of the day. The final World Cup qualifiers in Africa to determine who represents the continent at the Mundial in Qatar, this 2022. That is the next big assignment for 10 countries in Africa once the AFCON is over, the operation we must qualify for Qatar.
African contenders to represent the continent in the FIFA World Cup, Qatar 2022, 10 of them all, became aware of their fate a week ago when the draw for the third and final round of the African qualifiers was held in Douala, Cameroon.
The pairings for the 2-leg matches set for next March threw up some interesting and tricky fixtures.
Mali vs Tunisia
Cameroon vs Algeria
Egypt vs Senegal
DR Congo vs Morocco
Ghana vs Nigeria
Let us take a look at the one which concerns us;
Ghana vs Nigeria
The biggest and what looks like the fiercest is expected to be between Ghana and Nigeria as the two countries are not only from the same West African region, they are also close neighbours.
The two African giants, previous winners of the AFCON, speak the same lingua franca and have an almost equal pedigree at African football and the world level.
Ghana has won the Africa Cup of Nations four times (1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982) and has been runner-up five times (1968, 1970, 1992, 2010, and 2015) while Nigeria has won the AFCON three times (1980, 1994, 2013). The Super Eagles have been runners-up four times (1984, 1988, 1990, 2000).
On the world stage, the two countries have been to several junior and senior World Cups with Nigeria attending the last senior FIFA World Cup in Russia 2018 while Ghana failed to qualify, after attending the previous three back-to-back (2006, 2010, 2014). Nigeria only missed out on the 2006 edition in Germany having started in 1994.
Nigeria became the first African country to win the U-16 FIFA World Cup when she won it in China, 1985 while Ghana became the first African team to win the U-20 FIFA World Cup when she defeated Brazil in the final in 2009 in Egypt. The Ghana/Nigeria rivalry also got to the world stage when both countries clashed in the final of the World FIFA U-17 championship in Japan in 1993. The Golden Eaglets of Nigeria edged the Black Starlets of Ghana by 2 goals to one.
Well, both countries had a disastrous outing at the AFCON with Ghana crashing out at the group stage while Nigeria left at the Round of 16. With their pedigree in African football, both countries should be easy candidates for the semi-finals in any African tournament. This is what is making this next face-off between the two teams a very interesting one to follow. Winning the ties or picking the ticket any which way, one is forced to believe, will be the perfect way to forget the AFCON nightmare and look ahead to a better outing at the world summit while putting smiles back on the faces of the millions of disappointed fans who suffered heartbreaks a couple of months earlier. For the loser, I am afraid, football will never be the same again, not in the next year. A disappointing AFCON and a World Cup no show will just be too much to process for the average football fan out there.
The matches will come up between 23-29 March. Before we know it, the month of March is here. But in the meantime, both countries have had a truckload of problems. Ghana has just sacked their manager, Nigeria did a couple of months back. Nigeria already appointed an interim technical crew and have even gone ahead to hold contract talks with Jose Peseiro. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the Portuguese are expected to become the next Nigeria coach. So Ghana very quickly also needs to appoint either an interim or a substantive coach.
The two teams are right now in crisis, truth must be told but they also need very quickly to come around and face the task ahead, squarely.
Time is short, but there is still time to turn around what is left. The patriotism in me wants Nigeria to qualify for the World Cup. It is going to be tough but the stronger team will survive.
When we meet next time, things would have become a lot clearer.
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