2022 WC playoff : Super Eagles must not repeat AFCON mistakes when they battle Ghana

Published: March 22, 2022

I'm writing this because of the upcoming two legged World Cup playoff against the Black stars of Ghana. Here's hoping we don't repeat the same mistakes.

Throughout the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, I saw how super reliant we were on one man for our attacking play - the man Moses Simon.

The Nantes winger carried almost all our attacking burden especially against the two tough opponents we faced, Egypt and Tunisia.With the other two sides, we did manage to get our attacking bites from elsewhere.

Before I do my analysis of the Tunisian game, let me first mention the Egypt game in passing.

My thinking is either Egypt underrated the Super Eagles or didn't expect Simon to be that much of a problem to them. I certainly didn't expect him to be that effective.

Now, moving over to the Tunisian game. My first thoughts as we entered the field of play was how will the Tunisian team handle Nigeria's most potent attacking force.

Here was me hoping that our North African opponent will be blind to our "weapon of mass destruction" Moses "dazzler" Simon.

Unsurprisingly, my hopes were quickly dashed within the first five minutes. I knew we were going to have a tough time creating chances.

The Tunisians must have watched our previous games and knew exactly what to do to the name on every football loving Nigerian lips.

They put three players to surround him every time he had the ball which meant he couldn't perform on the night.

To make matters worse, the left-back Zaidu Sanusi who is usually quite attack-minded never really crossed the half way line to give support and at least drag one of the Tunisians on Moses away.

Even Aribo offered little to nothing in that same regard. This and adding to the fact that our right hand side of the attack offered very little in our two games against the North African opponents.

In concluding, I hope our coaches are smart enough not to depend heavily on one attacking outlet. Also that they get the fullbacks and midfield fully involved in our attacking play.

Kekere Nkop