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Eagles know foes as World Cup draw holds

Nigeria's Super Eagles
Pius Ayinor and Idris Adesina
Super Eagles will know their opponents today (Friday) as the draw for Russia 2018 World Cup holds at the CAF headquarters in Cairo.
The 20 qualified teams have been drawn into four pots according to their rankings. Nigeria are in Pot 2 along with Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, DR Congo and Mali. Only the winners of the five groups would progress to the Russia 2018 World Cup.
World football governing body FIFA has retained the original seeding for the draws as against the special rankings that had been announced for the draw. The FIFA Emergency Bureau for the World Cup qualifiers on Wednesday stated that protests from member associations called for the review of the seeding.
Egypt earlier protested the seeding released on June 7, which put them in the same pot with Nigeria but, the Nigeria Football Federation officials confirmed that they also filed a protest to FIFA, insisting that Nigeria deserved to be in Pot 1.
FIFA however changed its decision to conduct a special ranking and stuck with the June 7 ranking for the draws.
A FIFA letter explaining the final decision read, “This ranking – 7th June 2016 – remains thus valid for the 3rd qualifying round draw. Therefore, the FIFA letter dated 15th June 2016 suggesting a ranking on 21st June 2016 shall be deemed null and void. Please take note that this decision is final and binding and not subject to appeal, as per article 3, paragraph 4 of the Regulations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.”
On Thursday former Nigeria internationals, Friday Ekpo and Yisa Shofoluwe, said no group would come easy for Nigeria at the end of the draw.
The former internationals told one of our correspondents that the country should not worry about their opponents but should rather face their own preparations for the qualifiers.
“There will be no group that will come easy in the draw. Any group Nigeria find themselves would still be tough for them to progress from if the right preparations are not done,” Ekpo said.
Shofoluwe believes the team needs to get a substantive coach and begin quality preparations ahead of the qualifying matches.
He said, “Whatever group Eagles get will not be easy. All the 20 teams want to make the World Cup so what we need to do is tighten our own belts. It begins with getting a right coach for the team and beginning preparations right from the first match.
“When we start with a win, we can always build on it and be sure of qualification. It will be bad if we get shoddy about this and miss out of the World Cup after the two Nations Cup misses.”
Pot 1: Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia
Pot 2: Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, Congo DR, Nigeria, Mali
Pot 3: Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea, South Africa, Congo
Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya
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