Nigeria’s Super Eagles and the Pharaohs of Egypt must not underrate the Squirrels and Black Mambas if they are to progress from Group C writes Tunde Sulaiman

They mainly have names depicting various animals found on the African continent, from Eagles to the Black Mambas to the Squirrels. However, one of the protagonists battling for passage from Group C of the African Cup of Nations (CAN) bears the name of an ancient civilisation, the Pharaohs. And it is the descendants from this ancient warrior civilisation that will want to upstage the animals at the imposing 25, 000-seater Complexo da Sr da Graca in Beguela.
This is the mixture of teams lined out in the third group of the continent’s premier competition for senior teams. Nigeria will be represented by the Super Eagles; Mozambique by the Black Mambas, Benin by the Squirrels and Egypt by the Pharaohs.
Conversely, what makes this group even more interesting is that five-time back-to-back winners, Egypt is in the cluster and on paper is the team to beat. But then all the other ‘animals’ will have different ideas determined to get the better of the North Africans in the first tournament of the new decade.
However, just like the famous novel, Animal Farm written by George Orwel ‘all animals are equal but some are more equal than others!’ And this famous adage applies to none other team in the group than the Super Eagles.
A lot is riding on the performance of the Eagles at Angola 2010 both on and off the field of play. Having made it to the finals of the World Cup taking place in South Africa, the Eagles cannot afford to slip up if they are not to give their countrymen the impression that they are just going to South Africa to make up the numbers.
Besides this, although Coach Shaibu Amodu has publically insisted that he has not set any target for himself and his team in Angola, deep down he knows that his World Cup fate is tied intricately to the performance of his wards at the Nations Cup.
Already under fire for the team’s unimpressive march to the World Cup, the fact that Angola 2010 was just around the corner ensured that he would keep his job as head of the Eagles’ technical crew at least until the Nations Cup.
However, should the Eagles fail woefully in Angola even the hardest of his supporters will have little left to make a case for Amodu retaining his position at the bigger stage. Ironically he might still even do well and find out that a foreign technical assistant is brought in to help tinker with the Eagles at the World Cup.
Then the hierarchy of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) that has defied some very strong interest groups in order to back their manager, will find it very difficult to secure second terms should the Eagles fail to fly high in Angola.
The players are also not immune from what is at stake. A or outing by team will likely see the Eagles being overhauled before the World Cup finals, as was the case with the team that made it to the semi-finals of Mali 2002 but were still disbanded!
So with so much riding high on the Eagles it is little wonder that the NFF has gone physically to meet the players in their various bases abroad to appeal to them to put in their best at the tournament.
Incidentally Nigeria kicks off their campaign against the strongest side in the group, the Pharaohs two days after the tournament gets underway on January 10.
Nigeria has a fairly decent record against the champions with the Eagles losing only twice in 13 previous clashes with the Pharaohs. The two-time champions have won five times putting 21 goals past the North Africans while letting in 17.
The Eagles record against the Pharaohs in CAN is even more impressive with only one loss in seven meetings. Nigeria has won three and drawn three scoring 10 times while letting in the same number of goals.
At their last meeting which took place in Rades when Tunisia hosted the Nations Cup in 1994, both sides played out a goalless draw in the group stage of the competition, which the Eagles incidentally went on to win.
Being the opening game both teams will go all out to try to do well and so a lot will depend on the current form of the sides and how well motivated they are for the task ahead.
Nigeria’s next game takes place four days later at the same venue against next door neighbours, Republic of Benin – a team they clearly love to play.
In 14 meetings against the Squirrels, the Super Eagles have won nine scoring a staggering 38 goals in the process, while conceding only eight! They have only lost once to their neighbours.
However, although Nigeria has won both CAN finals games played against Benin they have not been easy. Fans will remember how the Eagles had to dig deep to upstage the Squirrels 2-1 in their final group game played in Sfax at Tunisia 2004. And only last year in Sekondi, Ghana the Eagles again had to battle hard to win 2-0.
So the Eagles will have to be on top of their game to secure the all important three points against their neighbours.
Should things have gone according to plan, by the time the Eagles are playing their final game against Mozambique they should have already wrapped up the qualification ticket, thereby reducing the pressure on them.
Football fans vividly remember how the Mambas almost denied the Eagles the South Africa 2010 ticket after playing them off the park in Abuja before a last grasp goal saved the day for Nigeria. In the first leg played in Maputo, some very favourable refereeing decisions enabled the Eagles leave with a share of the spoils of war. Incidentally these two meetings in the race for South Africa 2010 remains the only times both teams have met and the Mozambicans have already warned that they intend to give Nigeria a bloody nose in Angola.
For Egypt the clash against Benin should hold no fear for them having yet to lose to the West Africans in three previous meetings. The North Africans have won two of those clashes scoring 12 and conceding only five.
They are yet to meet in a CAN final before.
However, this is not the case between the Pharaohs and the Mambas with their only two previous meetings taking place at CAN finals, with Egypt winning both with identical score lines of 2-0. The first was in 1996 when Egypt hosted and the second was 12 years later in Burkina Faso.
Republic of Benin and Mozambique will be getting acquainted for the very first time at Angola 2010 which makes their clash very intriguing.
At the end of the day, how well the two big teams fair against the so called minnows may determine if they progress to the knock out stage – and for Nigeria if Amodu will still be in charge at the end of Angola 2010!

NEWS SOURCE THISDAY

General RSS 2.0 trackback leave a response