Sports

 

Nigeria and South Africa clash in World Cup qualifier

Despite without the injured  talismanic striker Victor Osimheh, the Super Eagles will be out to take the three points at stake against South Africa tomorrow, September 9 , even if it’s ‘by an odd goal’ in the words of coach Eric Sekou Chelle, to truly put their 2026 World Cup hope alive.

After an underwhelming campaign in the opening four matches where  they earned a paltry three out of possible 12 points, the Super  Eagles seem to have undergone  some sort of resurgence under new coach, Eric Sekou Chelle as the team collected seven points from their next  three matches including a 1-0 win against Rwanda in Uyo on Saturday. That victory leap-frogged  Nigeria to third position with 10 points behind Benin (11 points) and leaders,  South Africa (16 points) while Rwanda  moved to fourth position on eight points and Lesotho and Zimbabwe  followed suit  on six and four points respectively.

Nigeria sits six points behind South Africa but should they be ducked as being widely envisaged following the use of an ineligible player  (Tebeho Mokoena)  in previous win against Lesotho, then the difference  would just be only three points going into the last  round of matches in October.

Ahead of Tuesday’s cracker South Africa’s Belgian coach Hugo Broos admitted  it was not yet Uhuru for the Bafana Bafana after their 3-0 win over Lesotho in Bloemfontein.

 “It’s a nice number, on the other side, the only thing that’s important is win the games we’re supposed to win and it was not so easy today,” Broos reportedly  told SABC Sport.

 “It was a very nervous game, you know what happened before. We did what we had to do and make beautiful goals.

We have to go on now, that’s the most important thing. We still haven’t qualified even if we are in a good position but there are still three games

“We are in a very good position. We have it in the hands and we will try not to give it away and in one hand we will have a very big party.”

While an  away win for Nigeria would propel them right back into contention after a generally ineffective qualifying campaign, a win for South  would propel  the Bafana Bafana  to their first World Cup  since they hosted the Mundial in 2010.