Sitting quietly at one corner of the departure hall of the Kigali International Airport on Saturday morning, Super Eagles’ captain William Ekong had a relaxed mien about him and minced no words in saying that Friday’s victory over Rwanda’s Amavubi was just the statement the Eagles needed to put out as the World Cup race reached halfway mark.

“It was important to make the statement that we did, and we’re all happy about it, and the way we did it.

Of course, we have not qualified and there’s still a lot of work, but we have started the recovery in a good way and we just have to keep working hard.

“I don’t want to go into the circumstances that made the first four matches go the way they went. The good thing is we can still recover and revive the campaign, and we have done that.”

Ekong’s firm leadership, and Victor Osimhen, Ademola Lookman and Simon Moses’ zest at the fore, were all too evident and impactful as the Eagles coasted to a 2-0 win over hosts Rwanda at the Amahoro Stadium, throwing up nostalgia of the strong squad that wowed all and came within 23 minutes of lifting the Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire early last year.

As the chartered ValueJet Airline’s CRJ-900 aircraft touched down at the Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo at 2 pm on Saturday, Ekong told thenff.com that he would be rallying the troops ahead of Tuesday’s Day 6 encounter against the Warriors of Zimbabwe.

“We read somewhere that the Zimbabweans are being motivated to come to Uyo and get a result.

“They should forget it. We are hugely motivated by the ambition to play at the FIFA World Cup. Apart from myself, Alex (Iwobi) and perhaps a couple of others, who were part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, this generation is hungry to play at the highest level.

“We want to make Nigeria proud and at the same time, do ourselves proud.”

Victor Osimhen, whose brace unscrambled the calculations of the Amavubi and made them disappoint the capacity crowd that included President Paul Kagame, said at the Victor Attah Airport: “We are ready. The remaining matches are wars and we must fight them with all that we have to win.”

Victory on Tuesday evening will take Nigeria to nine points, and in firm contention for the ticket, especially if Benin Republic and South Africa cancel themselves out inside Abidjan’s Stade Félix Houphouet-Boigny.

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Coach of Nigeria’s next opponents in the World Cup qualifying series, Michael Nees of Zimbabwe may have been disappointed by the 2-0 defeat the Super Eagles inflicted on Rwanda in Kigali on Friday.

Ahead of the encounter, Nees had on Thursday told Rwandan newspaper, The New Times that the star-studded Nigeria will struggle against Rwanda when the two teams meet on Friday.

Speaking in an interview on Thursday after his team fought back to recover from a two-goal deficit to claim a point in a 2-2 draw against Benin at the Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa, the German tactician recalled that the Super Eagles have always struggled against Amavubi in Rwanda.

“I can tell you, I know because I was working in Rwanda. They (Nigeria) always struggle in Rwanda,” he said.

“They missed the World Cup in Germany when they played a draw in Rwanda in 2005, they lost against Rwanda in the last Afcon qualifier game,” he recalled.

Zimbabwe are now deeply rooted at the bottom of the six-team log and will be facing Nigeria on Tuesday in Uyo. Both teams played 1-1 draw when they met in November 2023 in Rwanda.

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