SUN 23 JAN, 2022-theGBJournal- Nigeria came third after beating Tunisia 1-0 in their third-place playoff match on July 16 2019 in Egypt following Odion Ighalo’s lone strike in the 3rd minute.
Once again both teams, coincidentally named ‘’Eagles’’ are set to do battle again at the African Cup of Nations 2021 at the Roumde Adjia Stadium in Cameroon. This time it is a play for a place in the quarter finals. Match kick off at 8pm (Nigeria Time).
Nigeria head into Sunday’s game unbeaten after six outings across all competitions, including the World Cup qualifiers-winning five and drawing once since their October 1-0 loss to Central Africa Republic in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
Nigeria was the standout team at the knockout stages, leaving many believing the star studded team is on course to secure a fourth Africa Cup Nations title (Champions in 1980, 1994 and 2013).
The belief heightened after an emphatic 3-1 victory against Sudan, spiced up with another smooth 2-0 beating of hard fighting Guinea-Bisssau. The Super Eagles had kicked-off their tournament with a 1-0 win against Mohammed Sallah led Egypt.
Nigeria and Tunisia are meeting for the sixth time at the Africa Cup of Nations, with four of the previous five matches being played in knock-out games. Nigeria are unbeaten in all five (W3 D2, excluding shoot-outs).
Augustine Eguavoen, Coach of the Super Eagles was quoted by CAFOnline as saying, ‘’We topped our group with maximum points, but this is a totally different story, and the players and technical staff know this well. We are not done with what we had in the group. We will work together for the coming steps. We plan to go as far as possible. Being named best coach of the group stage was because of the players. They make coaches win.’’
‘He added that Tunisia deserved to qualify, ‘’and we respect each other. We both have the same target which is to win and qualify. We will continue to work in the same way.’’
Wilfried Ndidi said, ‘’there’s no big difference between our team in 2019 and this one. We work and entertain ourselves while keeping our team spirit. Playing in Garoua is an advantage for us, we have many supports here and we need that. There are no preferred players in the team. The coach decides who plays and we all have the same target.’’
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