Super Eagles and World Cup 2014: Lessons from the Qualifiers

By Obi Martins The FIFA World Cup qualifiers has revealed some surprising results. From Europe where former world champion, France, is struggling to qualify at the expense of a radical Ukrainian team, to Africa where Ethiopia emerged ahead of South Africa from the group stage to become the last hurdle Nigeria jumped before clinching a berth Brazil. Now, that hurdle has been crossed flawlessly, but there are mistakes and lessons to take home from the qualifier series. The team still lacks finishing Nigeria has been one of the formidable sides in the World Cup qualifiers but her poor finishing was exposed against Ethiopia. We found it difficult to break them in the two-legged affair, aside from the brilliance of Emenike who surged alone to score a magnificent goal at Addis Ababa. Nigeria got her other goals via set pieces gifted by the referee. When counter attacking, the players actually did not know what to do with the ball; it exposes our decision making ability. If not checked a more technical side which we will eventually meet might take advantage of that weakness. We need a good replacement for Kenneth Omerou and Emenike This qualifiers have shown that injuries are inevitable in football. We can’t rely solely on Omerou and Oboabona at the back, neither can we keep all our eggs in Emenike. We need to scout for a talented defender and a striker who can effectively replace  any of the duo if one is injured. After all, they say, good defense wins championships. Injury to Emenike might infer doom for the Eagles. This weakness was exposed at the Confederations Cup where we saw how the backup strikers failed woefully. Keshi is a hero but must improve not to become the villain As the saying goes, no one is perfect. Stephen Keshi has proved to Nigerians that he is capable of delivering the goods even when the chips are down. But caution must be followed. There were still lapses which were noticeable in the team; the poor finishing, the lack of effective defensive personnel and lack of good counter-attacking instincts to name a few. If these deficiencies are properly treated, this team should be able to rub shoulders with the likes of Germany, Brazil and Spain and the dream of lifting the World Cup might just become a reality.