Football Nigeria -- Eagles Etcetera

The method that the Confederation for African Football (CAF) has set up for the 2022 World Cup tournament qualification assures a difficult path for every African team. The first hurdle on that difficult road will be the group games. The next and final hurdle will be the draw for the play off between the group champions at a later date. Of course, this assures that Africa will arrive in Qatar with five teams that have passed very difficult tests. Of the ten groups made known today, the most difficult group is surely Group D based on the most recent FIFA ranks (December 19). Group D has the highest average rank when compared to the others (see Table 1) and the two top ranked teams in that group have the smallest differential of -8 (see Table 3) signifying a tough battle between the top two teams. Top teams with differential of -27 or below are most likely to face grim battles to finish top. The differential of -27 is an arbitrary figure based on differential between Senegal (Ranked

Nigerians may be raving about results from recent international friendlies against two of the World's Top 10 teams and two consecutive wins to begin the 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifiers late in 2019. However, beneath all of that is a shaky defense that has only one clean sheet in its last nine  (9) games (see below). It has become routine to expect the Nigerian national team to concede a goal or two whether at home or away and whether it is against a top notch defense or against nondescript teams. Recently, Nigeria gave up two goals against Lesotho in a game that Nigeria largely dominated. In several of these games, the goalkeeper was hardly at fault in spite of the belief that Nigeria's problem is suspect goalkeeping. This frailty, clearly, go beyond goalkeeping. It is squarely an issue with the defense. Nigeria's Last 9 Games (Team A) 0-2 v Madagascar   June 30, 2019 3-2 v Cameroon      July 6, 2019 2-1 v South Africa   July 10, 2019 1-2 v Algeria