As the world cup approaches, it is important to look at the performance of our beloveth country Nigeria, in previous editions of the competition, so as to know what to expect from our national side when the competition finally kicks off come June 12 2014.
After several years of trying to qualify, Nigeria qualified for the football greatest showpiece for the first time in 1994, and has since qualified for the competition except for the one held in Germany in 2006 in which Angola offset the Super Eagles to the top of their group to qualify for the world cup.
The exploits of the Super Eagles at the world cup has been dwindling since they first qualified for the showpiece, a situation that has raise concern in recent times and made fans to ask questions into what usually go wrong, below is a brief analysis of how Nigeria fared in the previous editions.
USA 1994
Nigeria was grouped in group D along side Bulgaria, Greece, and Argentina, and Nigeria topped the group with 6 points scoring 6 goals despite losing to Argentina, captained by the famous Diego Maradona in the final match of the group.
The Super Eagles then met the Azzuri's of Italy at the second round and their inexperience tell despite taking the lead as they loose 2-1 to Italy who eventually came runners-up in the competition.
The performance of the Eagles at the competition did not go unnoticed as Nigeria was ranked the 5th footballing country in the world after the competition.
France 1998
Nigeria once again participating in their second world cup, won group D which has Spain, Paraguay and Bulgaria with 6 points from 3 matches with a famous victory against Spain when Sunday Oliseh's balistic missile of a shot sealed a 3-2 victory for the Africans as they have come back twice to win. However they could not go beyond the second round stage again as they once again lost out scandalously 4-1 to Denmark.
Nigeria scored a total of 6 goals conceding 7 in their time out in the years tournament.
Korea/Japan 2002
Participating in the world cup for the third time in a row, Nigeria was grouped along side Sweden, Argentina and England, Nigeria could not replicate their form in previous editions as they were only able to muster a goalless draw against England having lost their previous two group games to Sweden and Argentina and thereby lie bottom of the
group with a single point, crashing out disgracefully.
South Africa 2010
Having lost out to Angola in the qualifying rounds of the world cup, Nigeria qualified to play in the 2010 edition, hosted by South Africa; the very first to be hosted on African soil, and were grouped in group B with Argentina, South Korea, and Greece.
Just like their last outing in 2002, Nigeria did not put up a good performance and crashed out after loosing two straight games and drawing just one against South Korea. The Super Eagles were able to muster just three goals and conceded five.
Since their last participation at the world cup, the Eagles has been rebuilding and so much work has been going on in preparation of this year's edition of the competition and it is very glaring the efforts of the coaches and NFF is yielding results with the last exploits of the team in recent times; winning the Nations Cup and qualifying for the world cup in convincing fashion.
This year's edition sees Nigeria facing familiar foe, Argentina, with Bosnia and Iran completing group F (a relatively easy group) however it is yet to be seen if the recent found form of the Eagles will rob off on them at the Mundia come June.
0 comments:
Post a Comment