Northern Promises.

“Better a broken promise than none at all.”

~ Mark Twain

The fear of Tunisia is perhaps the beginning of wisdom for Nigeria. Why does Nigeria need to fear (no, let me rephrase, respect) Tunisia, one might ask. It's simple, three times we've met at various stages of FIFA World Cup preliminaries and twice they've come out smelling of roses.

The only time Nigeria overcame them, the Eagles needed penalties to do so, after both matches ended 2-0. That was in 1981.Of course everybody remembers the infamous loss in Lagos in 1977.

Very few people however, know that they were responsible for Nigeria's absence at Mexico '86. In one of the bleakest periods in Nigeria football, a time the Eagles failed to qualify for the 1986 FIFA World Cup as well as the Nations Cup.

Without Captain Stephen Keshi and five other players from league champions NNB FC who were suspended after a dispute with the NFA, Tunisia dumped the Eagles out of the FIFA World Cup 2-1 on aggregate and Nigeria's search for their first appearance at the finals tournament continued.

To date, Tunisia still have the upper hand in the head-to-head statistics against Nigeria, but over the past tens years the balance of power has tipped slightly to the Eagles favour.

As the Super Eagles prepare to meet the Eagles of the Carthage variety on Saturday, they can look to their past performances at Tunisia's western neighbours, Algeria for inspiration. While the first result helped achieve the ultimate goal, a FIFA World Cup ticket, the later while impressive was not enough.

With the Ivory Coast breathing down their neck, the Eagles needed a draw in their final qualifier in Algiers to book their flights to the USA. The Eagles were outstanding and Finidi George’s goal earned Nigeria a valuable 1-1 draw as well as a passage to the New World.

Unlike in 1993, the Eagles fate wasn't entirely in their own hands in the race to Germany 2006. The Nigerian set-up had pressed the self destruct button and the countdown was on. This meant they had to win their remaining games in the preliminaries while hopping that their main rivals Angola slip up.

In the penultimate game in Oran, the Eagles put in a vintage performance and ran away 5-2 winners, sadly it was not enough which meant the Nigeria missed out on a trip to Germany.

Once again, the pressure is on after they dropped two points in Maputo. Hopefully they can produce one of those back-to-wall performances, and come away with the three points.