By Victor Enyinnaya on July 10, 2019

As the football world awaits 8pm today, Wednesday, July 10, 2019, for the kick-off of yet another block-bursting quarter-final encounter between three-time kings of Africa’s major biannual football tournament Nigeria and one-time winners South Africa, Nigerian fans all over the globe would be praying that Super Eagles would put every feet right this night give them parting sweet dreams via overpowering their arch-rivals.

History has it that Nigeria has not it badly against the South Africans. Therefore, a concentrated and hard-to-crack match plan by the Franco-German technical head Gernot Rohr would get the ball rolling for the Nigerians. It is one game of nitty-gritty, wits and brawns, and the fireworks won’t be lacking at all.

It will be a classic of a game. A game of mixed grill with high stakes. South Africa is a fast-playing nation and to contain them Nigeria must play a compact game. It will be a tough match in all ramifications and Nigeria must be careful and adopt tactical discipline to ensure victory.

All eyes are on Rohr and who he will pick to be in goal as Daniel Akpeyi was a shadow of himself in the last game.

However, if the Super Eagles can reproduce the form that saw them dethrone Cameroun in the Round of 16, then the game must have been half won as South Africans never play physical football like the Cameroonians.

The first step towards achieving this would be to base selection strictly on fitness and creativeness of players that would be instructed for a precision mission on the pitch.

The goalkeeping area that has proved to be a disaster must be fixed without Daniel Akpeyi being in the calculations. To further compound his case, the wobbling and fumbling always panicking and nervous basketful goaltender has played in the South African league, which has his dossier. The lad has failed woefully to stamp his feet fully on ground as the most experienced goal tender in the team – which ought to have made him a rolling stone, but disappointingly he has shown all round weakness.

From whichever angle you may be looking at it, the encounter won’t be an easy nut to crack. It will take extra ingenuity from any side that would carry the day to put forward killer tactics and techniques in order to come out tops.

There is still a wide gulf existing between analysts and pundits on where the pendulum would swing, pointing out vividly the way and manner South Africa stylishly but doggedly pulled the chest nut out from a raging fire in the Round of 16 against Egypt.

However, the other side of the divide insists that the Super Eagles showed class against their equally tough Camerounian arch-rivals, the Indomitable Lions, whom the Eagles disarmed and finally sent home.      

Head or tail it will be one AFCON game to remember which sports analysts would refer to as it becomes history. Incidentally, too, one of the favourites would lick its wounds and leave Egypt to prepare better for another edition. The side that gets it right immediately the referee signals the start of today’s encounter may laugh last.

As Nigerians await yet another pulsating performance from their idols, we keep hope alive that the Super Eagles would give us this day. Fly, Eagles! Soar high over the boys from South Africa; tell them pointblank that this is the roundtable where only the big-hearted men trend.

•Photo shows Super Eagles

Source Daily Sports

Posted July 10, 2019

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