₦airaland Forum

my brother, we will not be waiting for anyone's decision. Preparation has always been on. The scouts are at work. Just recently a GK was discovered. Whether Maduka comes good or not, the handwriting on the wall is clear -- we are not waiting for anyone's decision.

Mujtahida:
The point with Enyeama goes beyond his regaining fitness, performance at club and whether he deserves a call up. The crux - more important than any other - is this: is Enyeama willing to return to the team? If he's not willing then as far as our WC is concerned all the other things mentioned do not count.
My thoughts are that we should start preparing those we have now oo and stop waiting for Enyeama to decide whether he's gon play for us, or wait for him to regain fitness or get a club or deserve his inclusion.
The sun is shining. Let's make hay.

We can't be complacent. This is a tricky group. The team we underrate might just be the most difficult to beat.

SupremeBeast:
all the best with Croatia but I know they are very beatable. it's mostly Nigerian fans that put pressure on the team.

Oh yes they will be in their 40s and won't be able to perform at an optimum level. I agree. And Rohr thinks like this

Modified
Just because we have the "youngest" team, the early 30s have become too old to play good football.. okay o.. kwantinue

ChrisKels:
The tinkering and watching of video tapes ain't gonna change the fact he made about the aging star players of Croatia

Abi tinkering will get them any younger?

This papa sef.
old age things

junnyjake:
Oh, you don't tell me.

Nigeria would have won 2002 World Cup but for squabbles –Adeboye Onigbinde

By Austin Peters -

December 2, 2017


Coach Adeboye Onigbinde has sensationally declared that Nigeria would have won the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan but for the internal squabbles that overtook his team at the championship.


The Super Eagles failed to go past the first round in Korea/Japan, but Onigbinde said he strongly believed if not for the bickerings that bedeviled his team at the World Cup, Nigeria would have made history.


“There was nothing stopping us from winning the World Cup (in 2002), but for internal problems in my team,” Onigbinde told Channels Television.

“If we had drawn with Argentina and beaten Sweden, we would have qualified for the next round and we could have gone all the way to win the World Cup.”


He said the biggest problem his team faced was the attitude of some of the players.


“The attitude of some of the players made me to overhaul the team after we lost to both Argentina and Sweden and we drew with England in our final group game,” he recalled.
Onigbinde has now back Nigeria to go all the way and win the World Cup next year in Russia.

“I said this a few months ago and some people thought it was a joke,” he said.
“It’s possible, let’s prepare World Cup and Nigeria can win the World Cup.”


Nigeria are drawn in Group D along with Argentina, Croatia and Iceland.
They open their Russia 2018 campaign on the night of June 16 against Croatia.

Today.ng

I like the group. It does not give room for complacency.
We were not favorites at the qualifiers, and we took it seriously. Let's also take this one seriously as the underdogs, not paying attention to mind games from the other coaches. We were the ones in Pot 4, so on paper, we are the underdogs.
Better that way.

edi287:
Truth is on Paper, Argentina and Croatia are favorites to get out of the group. Rohr and the players know this. I doubt they'd get carried away and underestimate anyone in this group

exactly!

chrisooblog:
I want to employ all of us to not get ahead of ourselves talking about qualifying for second round or quarters or semis right now the croatia match is our most important game our cup final. In short we should take it a game at a time

The Argentina game is our last game. One game at a time.
After our first game, we will know if Croatia is hyped or not.

SupremeBeast:
exactly, I'm having a feeling Nigeria's biggest test will be against Iceland, Croatia is a hyped footballing nation, Mexico defeated them at the World Cup 4-0 last four year! Nigeria can get a draw or a win against Argentina because I think Nigeria will be playing the weakest argentine team in recent times but beating Iceland won't be easy though it's possible.

laughable..

The world cup is 6 months away. These teams will just stay the way they are without tinkering or watching our clips, interesting!

ChrisKels:
From the desk of Ayo Akinfe. The very first time I took him seriously.


We are not under rating these teams but as a realist, Croatia and Argentina can't sit the Eagles

Croatia:

[1] By the time the World Cup starts, this will be
the ages of their star players:
Luca Modric -32
Ivan Rakitić - 30
Mario Mandžukić - 32
Nikola Kalinić - 30
Ivan Perišić - 29

[2] Croatia will not be able to deal with our pace

[3] By the time Croatia attack, we will have had
defenders back in place

[4] Croatia relies on slow methodical build-ups

[5] Croatia do not have the legs to deal with our
swift counter-attacks

[6] Domagoj Vida theior Dynamo Kiev centreback
and rock alongside Dejan Lovren, does not strike
me as someone who can handle say Moses or
Ighalo

[7] Ivan Strinić, their leftback who plays for
Samdoria is 30. How will he gallop up and down
the flanks at the same rate as Ebuehi?

[8] Croatia are not a high scoring side. If you
look at their qualification, most of their victories
were 1-0 affairs. They were just lucky to have
Kosovo in their group, who they beat 6-0 away,
boosting their goal aggregated

[9] From what I can see, Croatia, Ukraine, Iceland
and Finland were all equally matched in their
qualification group

[10] I can see Croatia struggling to break down a
stubborn Iceland defence
Argentina

[1] Argentina have been crap for the last two
years now. See how they struggled in their
qualifiers.

[2] Argentina have a chronic problem at the
back. Otamendi and Mascherano are too slow to
cope with quick attackers.

[3] Upfront they are fine with Messi, Aguero and
Di Maria but their defence is leaking goals. They
simply do not have the legs to cope with
counter-attacks.

[4] I do not see how that will change between
now an June unless two top central defenders
emerge and the coach has the guts to drop
Mascherano and Otamendi.

[5] Argentina play with three at the back and
simply cannot defend balls down the channel

[6] I have watched most of their World Cup
qualifiers and can tell you now that no one in
South America fears Argentina. Our 4-2 victory
just confirmed what has been going on for the
last two years.

[7] Can you please tell me how things will
change. Which defenders will you bring in to
replace the ageing Zavier Mascherano and the
slow Nicholas Otamendi?

[8] Against Nigeria, Germán Pezzella, the
centreback who plays for Italian club Fiorentina,
on loan from Real Betis, made his debut
alongside Otamendi and Mascherano in the back
three. Of the trio, only Pezella looked like he
could cope with the pace of Iwobi, Iheanacho
and Idowu

[9] I do not see Sampoli dropping the ageing
Mascherano. His tactics have left a lot to
desired. I doubt he has the guts to be brave

[10] By the time we play Argentina, I believe they
will be out of the tournament


We gotta be sanguine because right now, we ain't that bad.

Just as many Nigerians are upbeat about our chances, while others are fretting,
Likewise Argentines.
We can't make any generalizations from a couple quotes. Maybe you should do a survey or something.

ChrisKels:
I will provide u guys a link to what the Argies are saying about this group. They are fretting even worse than some us here. Take this for instance ;


"Nigeria has been pretty solid for a while, cruising
undefeated through the African WCQ. Plus, they did
beat us just two weeks ago, regardless of whether
or not Messi played. Strangely enough, they are
unexpectedly THE MOST STABLE TEAM OF THE FOUR at the
moment."

locoxriver

@ Mickael2
Why are we crying over Enyeama?. He is already on the road to recovery.
Let's see what happens between January and May. I will never shift my goal post. Performance at club level will show a player deserving for national call up. Then performance at the battlefield should show a player is deserving of selection for the WC. Rohr has already said Enyeama will have to start playing at the club level first before he will get a chance for recall... shekina!

mank1234:
Even players on bench who are not scoring should be called too since they trained with the team and would have been scoring if they were paying them.

Ehen!

soetanoreoluwa:
It happens to us before n it can happen to any team that didn't do their home work well..

When was the last time we qualify for AFCON?

If Rohr selects Martins for the WC those who have been against oldies, are you going to commit suicide?
make we let this matter rest either way it goes. At the end of the day let's hope Rohr picks the right players whether young, oyibo, homebased, old, EPL based, Indonesian based, Warri based etc to prosecute his match plan. And that the players play their best as a unit every match. We are behind the team regardless, and we cannot influence Rohr's decision just as we can't influence his pay.

goldfish80:
You're still taking about that friendly game? Look, we must be careful oh otherwise 2002 will repeat itself all over again.

Recall in 2002, we massaged our egos about going to the world cup with the youngest team. Even before the world cup, the team broke the Irish jinx by becoming the first team to defeat Ireland in Dublin for over 20 years if I recall, solid game against Paraguay with the infamous Ogbeche bicycle kick and a couple of other victories against Scotland and one other team.
We basically played the world cup before the world cup. Unfortunately, when the main event came up, we learnt the hard lesson at the mundial.
I mean, we nearly lost 3 games on the spin.

Make no mistake about it, the Argentina game is now in the dust bin of history. I get livid that we still make songs and dance out of the Atlanta 96 fame. We cannot keep stroking ourselves with that result. We must strive to get better thank goodness Gernot Rohr recognised this by not limiting his search within a particular circle.

I laughed when you made reference some pages back about Martins probably holding the team back due to a lack of pace. I laughed because just a fee years back, Martins was rated the top 2-3 fastest player in the world. You could say he's aged and the speed has dropped but I tell you after watching him sprint past 3 defenders in gear 2, to score last week I knew the guy still has it. Also, I must bring to your attention the case of Justin Gatlin.
You do realise this guy, the current world 100 meters champion is 35yr old, a good 2 years older than Martins. This guy can sprint past any teenage athlete you throw his way. This should tell you it's not about age but ability.

If you stick your head out that Victor Moses will outpace a 33yr old Obafemi Martins, you will wake up one morning and discover you're a dead man.

Bad surprises also happen. I’m just saying

TheGoodJoe:
It will not be our turn in Qatar. I see an upward trajectory in the development of the Super Eagles. However, I do not support or like mockery. We have bigger fishes ahead with the coming friendly games and the World Cup proper to worry about mocking teams that did not qualify.

No. Actually everyone who thinks it will be a continuation of our World Cup qualifiers thinks so. Surprises happen but not often.
Nigeria will qualify as long as we take every game seriously and not underrate any team.

Things get dicey at the knockout stages. Let’s take it a game at a time and stay humble

whizola:
Am I the only one thinking this
Nigeria top the group Iceland's finishes second

Enough of the mockery. That’s too petty. It might just be our turn in Qatar to miss out. It’s time to focus on Group D, not on a non-existent Group I

soetanoreoluwa:
Are you looking for group of death..? Here you find it.. Group I

Iceland and Croatia are familiar foes as well.

shogz89:
CROATIA IN SUMMARY

It’s a great thing we are playing Croatia first. I think we will have best chance beating them that way. And hopefully we seal it up with Iceland. Argentina last.. great!

Because Nigeria will go through as the surprise team.

Icon79:
All the clowns on Fox Sports are picking Argentina and Croatia to advance out of the group. About 6 people on the panel and none of them picked Nigeria to go thru.

Clowns on TV



O pari

We will pay dearly if we use that friendly match to rate Argentina.

soetanoreoluwa:
Ex international and Super eagles players dashing out words

True. It has to go both ways.

Icon4s:
Friendlies are a two way thing. You must also be attractive to your opponents in friendlies.

Colombia are playing Senegal, they would want to have a meeting with us in a friendly. They would also be a good South American test in preparation for Argentina.

Brazil are not playing any African team so Nigeria will not be of interest to them.

Poland is playing Senegal, so Nigeria would be attractive to them. They would also be attractive to us in preparation for Croatia and Iceland.

Germany are not playing any West African team and so Nigeria may not be attractive to them. Although Rohr may just influence this but it will not be of much benefits to Germany.

Serbia is more similar

edi287:
Rohr said we'll play Serbia for Croatia.

I will recommend the toughest possible similar opponents for friendlies.

Brazil for Argentina
Germany for Croatia
Poland (small but unpredictable team) for Iceland

Any team but Iceland can top that group.
Not underrating Iceland though. I think they al have a fair chance

Abusule007:
Nigeria can top their group

Germany will go through but not without a tough fight.

Geestunnar:
Here you have it folks. The groupings for Russia 2018 WC


Group A: Russia, Uruguay, Egypt, Saudi Arabia

Group B: Portugal, Spain, Iran, Morocco

Group C: France, Peru, Denmark, Australia

Group D: Argentina, Croatia, Iceland, Nigeria

Group E: Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Serbia

Group F: Germany, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea

Group G: Belgium, England, Tunisia, Panama

Group H: Poland, Colombia, Senegal, Japan

Spain may be the team not to go through. Stuffs happen.

edi287:
Morocco can beat Portugal if they're serious.

Very similar teams, 3 of them, considering the dual nationality of some of the Moroccans
I don’t think we have an actual group of death. We just have a couple tricky situations.

solonnachi:
Morocco will find it difficult with Portugal and Spain.

We can beat them again.. as long as we don’t underrate any team and we don’t fear any team we’d be fine

oloriooko:
Argentina will now show its true colour

It can easily be that kind of group were 3 teams finish with 6 points. Very tricky

edi287:
Our group is low key the group of death. I hope Rohr doesn't underestimate Iceland. As it is, Argentina and Croatia are favs to qualify.

As long as we take every game seriously, we’d be fine.
Underrate none

KevinDein:
Croatia is the bigger headache of the two European teams. They have too much quality; Modric, Perisic, Rakitic, etc. Genuine world class players playing for the very best teams in Europe.

It's a tricky group, but not an insurmountable challenge.

And, oh, Iceland would be the whipping boys

You want both at the WC?

COOL10:
. Reread my post,and you'll see I said I want Martins back but not at the expense of Iheanacho meaning I WANT THEM BOTH.

Actually our group is the trickiest of all the groups. I’d rather be in Morocco’s group.

Argentina
Iceland
Croatia
Nigeria

Wow Argentina again