AFCON
Egypt begins quest to upstage Nigeria in World Cup play-off seeding
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
With the FIFA Arab Cup beginning in Qatar today, Nigeria’s attention will be focused on the performances of Egypt for two reasons.
First, barely a month from now, both Nigeria and Egypt will meet in the opening Group D match of the Africa Cup of Nations in Garoua, Northern Cameroon.
That is the well known fact. But the hidden fact is that Egypt have at least three competitive matches in the group stage of the Arab World Cup in Qatar where they are facing Sudan, Lebanon and Algeria in Group D.
That gives them at least three competitive matches and Fifa ranking boosting opportunities before the January draw for the World Cup play-off.
The next Fifa ranking is tentatively fixed for 16 December, two days before the close of the Arab Cup in Qatar.
After that, 26 January is fixed for the first ranking in 2022 in the middle of the Africa Cup of Nations.
If Egypt advance beyond the group stage of the Arab Cup, the Pharaohs will have at least six competitive matches that will tremendously boost their likely ranking ahead of the World Cup play-off draw.
Incidentally, it is only Nigeria’s Super Eagles that are at risk of losing their current seeding position where they are placed fifth.
With the Arab Cup, Egypt are presented with golden opportunities of pushing Nigeria down to sixth position as the Super Eagles have neither a competitive nor friendly match to garner points ahead of the Nations Cup.
The top four teams of Senegal, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are well secured from possible toppling. Even the trio of Algeria, Morocco and Algeria have added chances of consolidating on account of having matches in the Arab Cup.
Should Nigeria lose their fifth position, they will have to face any of the five top ranked teams and play the decisive second leg away from home.
The Nigeria Football Federation, ahead of the CAF General Assembly ought to have either pressed for an early draw or propose that the ranking obtained as at the time the 10 African teams qualified for the play-off should be used.
In the case of the final draw for the World Cup, FIFA had always used the ranking of qualified teams before play-off to do seeding. This is premise on the fact that teams that qualified from play-off had additional matches.
Egypt will open their Arab Cup account facing Lebanon on Wednesday, a match they are most likely win, even with a second string team.
Nigeria at the 19 November ranking have 1478.78 points while Egypt have 1,449.5, thus only a paltry 29.27 points separate Nigeria from Egypt.
With the current ranking procedure that place more importance to final round competitions, as Egypt will be having at the Arab Cup, the Super Eagles are likely going to be pushed down ahead of the 22 or 26 January draw.
The Libyan Football Federation (LFF) has sacked its Serbian coach, Milutin Sredojević who is popularly known as Micho.
This is coming ahead of Libya’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations clashes with Nigeria next month.
Paradoxically, Sports Village Square gathered that the coach’s contract was only recently renewed for six months before the axe fell on the Serbian.
His sack was precipitated by the results obtained in their teo matches of the AFCON qualifiers.
Libya drew 1-1 with Rwanda at home and lost 2-1 away to Benin Republic despite beig a goal up at half time.
The Libyan side, Mediterranean Knights are due to play against the Nigeria Super Eagles in Uyo on 6 October while the return leg holds on 14 October at the 11 July Stadium in Tripoli.
According to information Sports Village Square gathered from Tripoli, the Mediterranean Knights’ coach, Micho led the Libyan national team to win nine matches since taking over in October of last year, he failed to build a strong team due to his poor choices.
He also took a risk with the footballers chosen in the AFCON qualifiers, and the result was shocking to the Libyan sports audience.
According to sources close to the Libyan Football Federation, there is a strong tendency to sign a national coach to lead the Libyan team during the remaining qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations.
CAF President Patrice Motsepe has lashed out at Ghana and some other African countries whose home grounds were recently banned from hosting CAF matches owing to inadequate facilities. He made the remarks in Nairobi, Kenya during a press conference,
After the MatchDay 2 of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, CAF ruled Ghana’s Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi as being inadequate to host international matches. Being the only approved ground in the country, Ghana will now look towards either Cote d’Ivoire or Togo for their remaining home matches of the Afcon qualifiers.
Other African countries without approved home grounds are: Djibouti, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Gabon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, São Tomé and Burundi.
Motsepe voiced his frustration over the recurring issue of nations being unable to host home games.
“Nothing frustrates me more than a national team or club side having to play home matches outside,” he stated.
He stressed the significance of playing in front of home fans, adding, “You can’t grow football if the national teams or club sides aren’t playing in front of their home fans.”
Motsepe reiterated CAF’s commitment to working with countries to ensure they have at least one suitable stadium to host international fixtures.
“Our conversations in every country are to make sure there is at least one stadium capable of hosting a CAF category C game,” he emphasized.
The on-going CAF AFCON Cote d’Ivoire 2023 Coaches Symposium in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire has brought together, the last three coaches that handled the Nigeria national football team.
Gernot Rohr, Jose Peseiro and Austin Eguavoen are part of the the elite coaches currently gathered in Abidjan.
Gernot Rohr whose tenure of 5 years and 55 matches is the longest ever by any coach in Nigeria, is currently handling Nigeria’s Africa Cupof Nations and World Cup qualifying rivals, Benin Republic. He was succeeded in the interim by Austin Eguavoen who is currently having another interim stint.
Peseiro left his position after the Africa Cup of Nations
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