Eagles set to fly away with the Cup

Most of their players are displaying their considerable skills in the leading leagues of Europe. Their squad for France is likely to include four players who have won the African Footballer of the Year Award and several others who have won European titles and championship honours in the leagues of Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Turkey.

Coach Bora Milutinovic, the globe-trotting Serb who has been in charge for only four months, has anembarrassment of riches from which to formulate the final list of 22 players for their Cup campaign.

The squad includes current African Footballer of the Year Victor Ikpeba and former winners Emmanuel Amunike, Nwankwo Kanu and Rashidi Yekini as well as known figures on the European circuit such as Sunday Oliseh, Finidi George, Taribo West, Daniel Amokachi and Austin Okocha. Qualifying was a straightforward enough task, with the goals of striker Amokachi, now with Besiktas in Turkey, instrumental.

Burkina Faso, Kenya and Guinea were brushed aside easily enough, and Nigeria were the first team to qualify for France after beating Kenya 3-0 in June last year.

Not that that was enough for the country’s notorious sporting officials, who promptly fired French coach Philippe Troussier for apparently defying orders from above.

Nigeria’s 22 is almost sure to include the majority of players who won gold medals at under-23 level at the Atlanta Olympics almost two years ago and several from the 1994 WorldCup.

The Olympic triumph featured wins over Agrentina and Brazil and reinforced the self-belief of the giant West African nation, whose soccer players seem to revel in adversity and administrative incompetence.

Of all the teams who will play in the World Cup finals in France, Nigeria have played the least number of international matches since 1996, a miserly total of 15 games.

Much of it has to do with the dis-organisation and squabbling between football association officials and the country’s powerful sports ministry and sports commission, as well as the banning of Nigeria from the last two African Nations Cups. A political squabble between Nigerian president Sani Abacha and his South African counterpart Nelson Mandela saw the super eagles withdrawn on the eve of the 1996 Nations Cup finals in South Africa and drew a two-year ban from the Confederation of African Football.

The lack of match practice was evident in Nigeria’s 1-0 defeat by Germany in Cologne in April when the team looked disorganisedand weak in defence.

But coach Milutinovic is still confident that Nigeria can make an impact in France.

“I’m still optimistic about the World Cup. We have very good individuals, now we have to make a strong team.”

“We still have to work hard and we don’t have much time,” said the coach, whose side have a high-profile friendly against the Netherlands to come before they head for the World Cup finals.

His optimism is valid given the way the Nigerians overcame a lack of match practice before the Atlanta Games and the last World Cup to put up a strong showing.

At USA ’94, a stunning display of attacking soccer saw them thrash eventual semi-finalists Bulgaria 3-0 in their opening match. A 2-0 win over Greece meant Nigeria qualified for the second round where they gave Italy a tremendous fright before going down to Roberto Baggio’s last-minute equaliser and extra-time winner.

This time, despite the fact they are in a tough group comprising Paraguay, Spain and the Bulgarians in France, the secondround will be the least of their expectations.