Gernot Rohr has said he is confident he will again qualify Nigeria to the World Cup, but at the same time he will be a lot happier if the fans returned to the stadium to cheer the Super Eagles all the way to Qatar 2022.
The Eagles are drawn in Group C along with Cape Verde, Central African Republic and Liberia with the overall winners advancing to a final eliminator against another group winner.
“There will be fierce competition regardless, but when we play without fans we’ll miss the excitement. I hope fans can attend games next year as this will make the matches more enjoyable,” Rohr told fifa.com in an interview.
“I also hope life will go back to normal so that fans can travel and attend matches, which will in turn bring football back to life.”
He also spoke of the Super Eagles chances in their qualifying group.
“We have three opponents in the group and have to respect all of them,” he began.
“Liberia are a team that can’t be underestimated as we saw when we beat them in a friendly.
“As for Cape Verde, they have players of Portuguese and Brazilian origin, and they can beat any team.
“Central African Republic are an unknown quantity for us, which makes it more difficult.”
He added: “I think the group is tough, but we believe in our capabilities.
“Given that we qualified from the group of death for Russia 2018, we’re confident we can make it this time as well.”
