Nigeria: Fifa Ranking & World Cup qualification

 

  The Positives

Dec 7, 2015 14:25:43

Should the Super Eagles be confident about their chances of making the trip to Russia in light of their recent form under Sunday Oliseh?

Nigeria’s national football team, the Super Eagles , will finish 2015 as the 66th best football-playing team in the world out of 208 (according to FIFA ) and worryingly, 14th in Africa.
Without sounding condescending, some of the countries that are above Nigeria are Cape Verde, Uganda, Congo, and Guinea, to name just a few, none of whom have been to a Fifa World Cup, while Africa’s most populous nation has undertaken that trip five times.
The draw for the last qualifying round for the 2018 Fifa World Cup will soon be made and with their current status, the Super Eagles will have to soar high to qualify for Russia.
One possible group could be Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Nigeria and Zambia - did your heart just stop beating for a second?
In light of their latest Fifa ranking, and the hurdles facing Nigeria in the months to come, should fans still expect Sunday Oliseh’s side to make their sixth Mondial?
We know that there is no hiding place – the chances of playing against lesser teams cannot even be fathomed, we are in the big leagues, which means that psychologically, the players in the Eagles are already getting ready for the better opposition that they will be up against.
Even the coaching team knows that any games lost in the final round could sound a death knell to their dream and ambition of getting to Russia.
While one key positive from Oliseh’s start as Nigeria coach is that his side have improved markedly in defence, and aren’t conceding goals, this fact is balanced out by the reality that they aren’t scoring too many either.
What also gladdens the heart is that the qualifiers won’t kick off for  another 10 months, which gives Nigeria more time to blood new players who could make a difference to the future of the team.
The Negatives
The current Super Eagles team is made up of very average players, it’s hard to dispute.
We cannot start to pick out each individual position, but critically, the team needs a midfield creator and a potent striker.
In the first eight games under Oliseh, the team scored just 13 goals, and this included matches against the likes of Tanzania and Swaziland.
There have also been too many controversies - Vincent Enyeama retired and  Emmanuel Emenike followed suit, events that are yet to be fully explained.
The coach was then ostensibly ‘forced’ to call up Kelechi Iheanacho for the match against Swaziland, in which he played the first leg as a substitute and was then dropped for the second leg.
Can players among the current crop step up, or must new players be found who can ensure the Eagles make it to the global high table?
Looking to the Future
We hear that the Nigeria Football Federation is planning friendly matches against Cote d’Ivoire and Italy in 2016.
It’s a good plan, but it must be a means to an end, rather than an isolated conclusion in itself.
We must not just play friendlies because of the glamour attached – the team must benefit.
Another piece of advice is that more players from the U-17, U-20 and U-23 sides should be promoted to create a bigger pool for Oliseh to pick from.
The national-team future of Victor Moses must also be sorted out as he is yet to play under Oliseh in this new regime, but is still one of the side’s most high-profile players.
And as legendary Italian coach, Arrigo Sacchi once said, “tactics should have a multiplicative effect and should make the team greater than the sum of its parts.”
Despite a preponderance of average players, Oliseh can forge a fighting machine – a team ready to work their socks off and run the opposition to the ground.