The chances of Nigeria's Super Eagles qualifying from their world cup group seems to be more or less dead and buried after the rash display of a mixture of madness and immaturity from Nigerian Midfielder Sanu Kaita got him a red card and sending off in the 33rd minute, turning round a game in which Nigeria seemed destined to a comfortable cruise to victory after taking the lead early in the game to favour the Greeks who made good use of the extra man as they overran the 10 man Nigerian team and piled pressure on the defence leading to their equaliser and eventual 2-1win.
The Nigerian team now seems set to exit the world cup in the 1st round but still have a slim chance of qualifying, to do so they need to beat Korea by a comfortable margin and hope that Argentina does the same to Greece. The big question would be is the current Nigerian team up to the task?
In all honesty most avid Nigeria fans must be experiencing large measures of doubt, this is arguably the weakest Nigerian world cup team of recent times lacking the skills and inventiveness of past teams which have included the likes of Finidi George, Jay Jay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Sunday Oliseh and strong inspirational strikers like Daniel Amokachi and Rashidi Yekini it is difficult to foresee any rays of hope for the current team.
A better Nigerian team should still have held on to the 1-0 lead or at the least held Greece to the 1-1draw and the glaring missed opportunity to equalise by Ogbuke Obasi late in the game only goes on to show the lack of quality in this team.
However I would'nt completely write them off just yet strikers Obafemi Martins, Yakubu Aiyegbeni and Obinna Nsofor are more than capable of finding the net on a good day and even though the calming influence and skills of injured mid fielder John Obi Mikel will be missed Nigeria still has the likes of the young Haruna who can move the ball around in midfield and experienced players like Danny Shittu, Taye Taiwo, Osaze Odemwingie along with veteran striker Kanu to help see them through, Goal keeper Vincent Enyeama has also showed some brilliant form and a lot might still depend on him to keep Nigeria's hopes alive.
In the meantime I think I'm going to place a few bets on Ghana, Ivory coast as the teams most likely to keep Africa's hopes shining in the 2nd round and Brazil because I just luv watching them.
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