Fear of the unknown

In the light of Super Eagles' 1-0 win over South Africa at the weekend in what was considered a poor team performance,most commentators have expressed doubt on the ability of the Eagles to beat stronger teams in the next round of the World/Nations cup qualifiers.

According to FIFA, Nigeria is currently ranked 5th,below Cameroun,Ghana,Egypt and the Ivory Coast. Morocco, Guinea,Tunisia,Senegal and Mali make up the top ten in the African ranking.

These presumably, are teams that pundits have in mind in their arguments.But the truth is there is very little chance of the Eagles meeting the teams in the top five of the current FIFA ranking. According to the criteria set out by CAF for seeding teams in the 3rd round of the World/Nations cup qualifiers,the likely top seeds for the second group phase are Cameroun (51points), Egypt (48 points), Nigeria (48 points),Ghana(45 points) and Ivory Coast (41 points).

This calculation is based on the assumption that these teams will win their final matches in this stage of qualifying and maintain their current FIFA rankings (both of which are attainable).Only Tunisia and Morocco have a good chance of overtaking any of these teams in the FIFA ranking,but they can still fall short due to their poor performances in Ghana 2008.

In the final analysis, the fact that Nigeria will likely avoid the afore mentioned teams does not mean that they cannot end up in group of death.In fact Nigeria could still end in group that contains Tunisia,Senegal and Rwanda, while the there is a chance they might end up in a relatively easy group with Guinea(inconsistent),Benin(we have never lost to them in a competitive match) and Cape Vade(never won a match against a top ranking team).

Whoever they end up with,there is no denying the fact that Nigeria will have to be on top of their game if they want qualify for the next FIFA World Cup.