The Super Eagles and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have come under scathing attacks by enthusiastic Nigerian football fans who have continued to express shock and disappointed over Thursday’s embarrassing 1-0 defeat inflicted on the three-time African champions by lowly rated Central Africa Republic (CAR) in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying match played at the Teslim Balogun stadium, Surulere, in Lagos.
Although they were the underdogs in the contest, the Wild Beasts as the Central Africa Republic senior national football team is called delivered the sucker punch at the death when Karl Namnganda profited from a terrible defensive mix-up between the ‘Oyibo wall’, Leon Balogun and William Troost-Ekong, to fire past a hapless Francis Uzoho in goal for the Super Eagles.
After the rude awakening, the Super Eagles hoofed and puffed to no avail as they couldn’t make their dominance of proceedings count against their less fancied opponents who held firmly to their goal for the shocking victory.
To many Nigerians, CAR are ‘unknown’ but those who have followed them know that they are a team on ascendency and must be taken seriously. It is on record that between 2010 to 2021, they successfully moved from 202 in FIFA ranking to 124th in the world. In addition, they shocked Algeria 2-0 at home in the 2012 AFCON qualifiers. They also won their first World Cup qualifying match at home in 2012 against Botswana. Maybe, the Super Eagles were unaware of the threat posed by the Central Africans.
Thursday’s defeat for the Super Eagles is actually their first in 40 years. Their last home loss in a World Cup qualifying match was on October 10, 1981 against Algeria at the National stadium Surulere in Lagos.
The anger and disappointment of most Nigerians following the loss to the Wild Beasts is not unfounded. Although the Super Eagles are currently without some of their key players like Wilfred Ndidi, Peter Oghenekaro Etebo, Alex Iwobi and Samuel Chukwueze, the team still boasts of experienced players who could have done the job because there is a yawning gap in quality between the two Qatar 2022 Group C opponents.