Zimbabwe head coach Michael Nees has said Nigeria’s Super Eagles were lucky to escape with a draw in Tuesday’s
The Super Eagles’ qualification hopes suffered a huge setback after playing 1-1 with Zimbabwe.
It was their third home draw in the World Cup qualifiers after playing six matches.
Victor Osimhen gave the Super Eagles the lead on 74 minutes after nodding home Ola Aina’s cross before Tawanda Chirewa equalized on 90 minutes.
The result means the Super Eagles remain in fourth place on seven points and Zimbabwe are still bottom on four points.
Speaking in his post-match press conference Nees stated that the Super Eagles’ chances of qualifying may be over.
“We know when things don’t go 100 percent Nigerians way they get frustrated, they start to panic I remember your captain said we should forget about getting a result here,” he said in his post-match presser.
“Like I said the World Cup qualification is over when it’s over and if it is over for us then it is over for Nigeria because how many points do Nigeria have, you are not first or second
“Nigeria came into the game full of confidence after the win against Rwanda and we knew the longer the game goes the slower they will get and it was exactly the way it was.
“We showed that we don’t give up and I think with three more minutes we would have come away with a win because I think in defence your team was dead physically.
“We showed we can play football, we didn’t pack the bus Nigeria started aggressively and wanted to end the game quickly it didn’t work out, we resisted, we showed resilience.”
Meanwhile, in the group’s other game South Africa defeated Benin Republic 2-0 in Abidjan while Rwanda and Lesotho played 1-1.
5 Comments
This guy is talking as if this is personal for him – like as if his only mission in life is to make sure that Nigeria does not qualify rather than just looking at his own team.
I won’t forget this in a hurry mr Nees aka mr 9ja hater.
And last last there will be igbe not egg on this haters face because we will still make the WC by qualifying through the best runners up playoffs, whereas he and his team have ZERO chance at all.
Hopefully we will meet again!
Even the playoff is dicey: twice sef.
From CAF site:
How qualifying works
The African qualifiers will be played across two rounds. The first will be contested in the form of a group stage, with nine groups of six teams each.
Each team will play two matches, home and away, against each of their opponents. The top finisher in each group will qualify for World Cup 26.
(The second round will pit the four best runners-up in two one-off semi-finals, followed by a final.)
The winner of this second round will participate in the FIFA Play-off Tournament.
FIFA Play-Off Tournament
The FIFA Play-Off Tournament will see six sides fight it out for the final two places at the 23rd FIFA World Cup.
It will involve two teams from Concacaf and one team apiece from the AFC, CAF, CONMEBOL and OFC.
The four lowest-ranked nations will meet in bracket semi-finals.
The two highest-ranked teams will go directly into the finals. The winners of the two bracket finals will reach the FIFA World Cup 26.
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Simply put, the first African playoffs will have the outright winner play semi final and final matches SUCCESSFULLY. 2 extra matches.
Then go play teams from 2 confederations with obviously a European team waiting in the finals since they are often the highest ranked teams in such cases.
In all, a successful playoff qualification for the 10th African team would have involved 4 additional matches.
The African playoffs would hold in November.
Can these players, who largely are responsible for missing out in qatar 2022, even target playoff spot, of they can’t kill off games at home?
Mehn, when you spell it out like that, then it does look impossible.
Even just looking at the convoluted set up and series of matches is exhausting and makes one think “just forget it” already! Kai!
There was I thinking that it would all just involve the African teams from the African groups – FIFA are mad to come up with such a stupid set up – why could they not just have made it so that each intercontinental region sorts out it’s own qualifier and then let 1 team eventually emerge to make it to the WC – ie create space for 5 teams to make it through the playoffs – one from each federation.
It is just another long thing from the “confused FIFA geniuses”
As for 9ja – let’s just forget the world cup and sack the entire NFF, make a law that no person up who has previously been involved in Nigerian football till now can be allowed to have any part in it again, and let Chelle pack his useless bag and cut out, for agreeing to allow the useless NFF and anybody else who was involved to select and choose his team and players for him.
Anyone who allows such a thing of corruption in a system can and should not be trusted!
Edit:
No European team in the intercontinental playoffs so since it will be AFC, CAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and concacaf teams, AFC and conmebol or concacaf teams might rank highest and wait for any teams from the semis.
To be quite honest we played very well. the coach is good. i think the problem is we cannot jut win matches at home that is what we should work on . it could be psychological. At the same time, the defense needs to be worked on. but if we build on this match, in 2 yrs time. the Nigerian team will be back. For the world cup, we are really not good enough for it. even if we qualify by backdoor or ineligiblity. we need to build a formidable team for the future