The dire situation in which Nigeria’s Super Eagles have found themselves, going into their last group match at the current Nations Cup in Ghana Tuesday, was best captured by the headline of a story on the team by the local football website Kickoffnigeria: Judgement day for Super Eagles.
CAN 2008: ‘Judgement day for Super Eagles’
The dire situation in which Nigeria’s Super Eagles have found themselves, going into their last group match at the current Nations Cup in Ghana Tuesday, was best captured by the headline of a story on the team by the local football website Kickoffnigeria: Judgement day for Super Eagles.
It could not be worse for the Nigerians, who had been expected to perform wonders following their top rating going into the 26th edition of the two-yearly soccer fiesta by the world’s soccer governing body, FIFA.
Later Tuesday (today), the star-studded but under-performing Super Eagles will be expected to beat the Squirrels of Benin in their last group B game, and then await the outcome of the second group B match between Cote d’Ivoire and Mali.
If the Elephants of Mali, who have already reached the quarter-finals, beat the Eagles of Mali, then the Nigerians will make it to the last eight, but any result short of that will mean an early flight home for a team that parades the likes of Nwankwo Kanu, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, Obafemi Martins and John Mikel Obi – all stars of the English premiership.
Local newspaper Tuesday captured the mood of this soccer-loving nation in their preview of the do-or-die match.
“Super Eagles bank on miracle” was the headlines in the Punch newspaper, whi ch revealed that the players have been praying and fasting ahead of the match, so as not to crash out in the first round of the competiti on.
“They have kept reminding themselves that the last time that Nigeria had this Nations Cup nightmare was at the Libya 1982 Nations Cup finals and they would not be ones to repeat history,” the paper reported in a dispatch from its correspondent in Sekondi in Ghana.
In the same vein, the Guardian newspaper headlined its own preview: ”Super Eagles need divine intervention to survive”.
But in his column tagged ”Africa Cup of Nations watch”, a former captain of the national team, Segun Odegbami, reflected the feelings of soccer fans across the country over the match against Benin.
Writing under the topic ”Eagles are not so super any more”, Odegbami said whatever happens in Sekondi Tuesday would not matter anymore, adding ”The Super Eagles are no longer quite as super as they used to be…In a year that the team has been ranked as number one in Africa by FIFA, it is humiliating that it could not go past Cote d’Ivoire and Mali.”
Nigeria lost 1-nil to Cote d’Ivoire and played a barren draw with Mali to box itself into a tight corner at the competition, which it last won in 1994.
