Football Nigeria -- Eagles Etcetera

Nigeria tied Tunisia 1-1 in a CHAN Group game today in far away Rwanda but in many ways the game is a reminder of what to expect when Egypt comes calling for a Nations Cup qualifier in Abuja next March. Of course Egypt is not Tunisia nor is the current Egyptian coach a clone of previous Egyptian coaches. However, North African football appears eerily similar when they play.  Today, you could almost swear that you were watching the 2010 Nations Cup game when Nigeria lost 1-3 to Egypt. Nigeria did better this time because it refused to take the bait and be suckered into a highline defending that Egypt of 2010 exploited with balls over the top after leisurely playing around with the ball in their defense. Tunisia sought the gaps in Nigeria's defense but failed to find them regularly in the opening half but they found other ways to attack. They exploited gaps left by Akas going forward. Upfront, the abundant spaces in the wide positions that Nigeria exploited against Niger Republi...

Nigeria's 4-1 win over Niger Republic in Kigali today provided a gaze into Oliseh and his team for this tournament. While this was not Nigeria's A squad, it is the same coach and same ideas and today those ideas began to come to the fore. The dream of pacy wingers, using Simon and Musa in the A team, exploded today with Okoro and Aggreh pointing the way with explosive runs that constantly troubled Niger's defense. Niger thought it had the problem solved with the high trap after 20 minutes but Nigeria rebounded in the second half. The ball possession, playing from the back and through the middle appear different from Keshi's approach with long balls over the top. For Oliseh, it is working the ball from deep and then finding the gaps wide to the pacy wide players. Against Niger today, it worked like magic. Today, Oliseh showed again that he was not tolerant of mistakes. To replace a player before the half time whistle is not something usual with Nigeria's tea...

This month Nigeria will again participate in the African Nations Championship (CHAN) that will be hosted in Rwanda. This second tier championship for African states is restricted to locally-based players only. In Nigeria's group will be Tunisia, Guinea, and Niger Republic.  The competition was not initially designed for countries like Nigeria. Instead, it was designed for the weaker footballing countries that often are eliminated early in continental competition and, therefore, spend months of football inactivity. This is, particularly, a reason why qualification is regionally-based to provide opportunities for regions with weaker footballing countries to play at the final stages of the competition.  It is based on the above that many question the value of the competition for a country like Nigeria. In fact, several writers suggest that the competition has no value to Nigeria's football. The question is how true is the statement: "has no value to Nigeria'...