South Africa coach Hugo Broos has been clear about his team’s ambition.
“We want to go to the World Cup,” he declared.
Bafana Bafana last featured at the Mundial when they made history as the first African hosts of the global football extravaganza.
At Sunday’s press conference for today’s World Cup qualifier against Benin in Abidjan, stand-in captain Wilfred Ndidi also said the Super Eagles wish to go to the World Cup particularly after the team failed to qualify for the 2022 edition in Qatar after falling at the final hurdle to perennial rivals Ghana.
“We want to go to the World Cup and we showed this in the second half against South Africa,” stressed the midfielder, who has so far won 56 caps for Nigeria since his debut in October 2015.
The difference between the Super Eagles and Bafana Bafana is that while Nigeria have so far dropped four points at home in this qualifying tournament, South Africa look set to maintain a 100% win record at home with expected victory over bottom team Zimbabwe tomorrow evening.
Three-time African champions Nigeria have so far dropped a staggering six points on the road to the next World Cup.
Bafana coach Broos will even further lecture the Super Eagles how much of a catastrophe it is to drop points at home.
The lethargic start to the qualifiers by Nigeria has caused commentators to question whether the Super Eagles have the hunger, the desire, to make it to their seventh World Cup finals.
Two laboured draws with Lesotho and Zimbabwe under coach Jose Peseiro last November had already boxed the Eagles into a corner, before another home draw with South Africa made the campaign a lot more difficult for them and pushed them into a terrible place.
Failure not to qualify for the World Cup back-to-back by Nigeria will be disastrous.
Of the 23-man squad in Abidjan today, only Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho, Maduka Okoye and Alex Iwobi have played at the World Cup.
That means stars like Victor Osimhen, Ademola Lookman, Victor Boniface and Stanley Nwabali, who are now at the height of their powers, will miss out on the action at the 2026 World Cup.
Another generation of some of the country’s finest players will not test themselves against the best world football will present.
In financial terms, Nigeria football will be denied a much-needed injection of at least $20 Million from prize monies and sponsorships.
That is not to take into account the goodwill and positive mileage that participation at the World Cup will bring the country as a whole.
In February, a whole country of over 200 million people came together to celebrate the exploits of the team as they made their way to the AFCON final for the first time in over 10 years.
How would it be in 2026, when the Super Eagles led by Osimhen are flying high at the World Cup and rewriting records after records?
