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Nigeria’s hope of being at the 2022 World Cup tournament in Qatar was on Tuesday shattered following the defeat of the Super Eagles by the Black Stars of Ghana in a superior goal aggregate after a 1-1 draw in the second leg tie of the World Cup playoff at Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja. The Nigerian side had last week played a goalless draw with Ghana at Baba Yara Stadium, Kumasi, in the first leg tie of the World Cup playoff.
With the defeat of the three-time African champions, Ghana will be featuring in the global football tourney for the fourth time. This is the second time the Super Eagles will be absent at the Mundial since its debut in 1994. The first time Nigeria could not make it to the World Cup was in 2006. The Super Eagles had featured in FIFA World Cup for six times: 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014 and 2018.
Apart from Ghana, other African representatives at the Qatar event scheduled for November/December 2022 include Senegal, Cameroon, Morocco and Tunisia. The Super Eagles’ absence at the Qatar World Cup has offered us an opportunity to reappraise the state of Nigerian football and chart the best way forward. This is the apt moment to truly reflect on the future of the nation’s football and how best to maximise our football fortunes in the years ahead.
It is generally believed that the lacklustre performance of the Super Eagles in Abuja led to our failure to qualify for the Qatar World Cup. Both the players and the coaching crew must be blamed for the great loss. While the players struggled in their bid to get the ticket to the Qatar Mundial, the bench failed to effect necessary changes when needed most. This was the same thing that happened at AFCON 2021 when the national team was defeated by Tunisia at the round of 16.
Now that the Super Eagles are out of this year’s World Cup, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the handlers of the national team should begin the preparation for the next World Cup. Our experiences in AFCON 2021 in Cameroon and the World Cup qualification ties had amply demonstrated that we cannot do much in football without adequate planning and preparation. Without adequate preparation, no team can actually go far in any regional or global football tournament. The failure of the Austin Eguavoen coaching team to make the necessary impact in Cameroon and World Cup qualification ties has boldly underlined the imperative of rejigging the technical crew with a view to making it more effective and decisive in reading games and preparing the team for tournaments.
Besides, the Super Eagles should be infused with home-based younger players, as some of our foreign-based players are getting tired and no longer hungry for goals. We need a fighting team, a team with zeal, passion, energy and vision to score goals and win games. A combination of home-based Super Eagles and those playing abroad will do the expected magic.
The advantage of having more home-based players in the team cannot be overemphasised as they will have more time to play as a team and blend so well before any regional or global football fiesta. The current pattern of quickly assembling mainly our players in diaspora is ad hoc and does not allow enough room for the team to play and blend adequately.
For long, we have depended so much on mother luck in some of our football outings. There is, indeed, a limit to what luck can achieve for a team. Regardless of what luck can do, an adequately prepared team will likely win. It is sad that Nigeria will not be represented at Qatar 2022 because of the wobbling performance of the Super Eagles.
Nevertheless, we urge soccer-loving Nigerians and fans of the national team never to brood or grieve so much over the blunder. Instead of lamenting endlessly over the loss, let them cheer up and support other teams representing Africa at the global football event. There is hope that the Super Eagles will soon bounce back into reckoning in regional and global football.
