Eguavoen: Super Eagles Half Way Through to Qatar 2022

NIGERIA V GHANA

Duro Ikhazuagbe 

Interim Head Coach of the Super Eagles, Augustine Eguavoen, is upbeat over the goalless draw with Ghana last Friday in Kumasi. He believes his wards are more than half way through to qualifying for this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

The three-time African champions were held Ghana to a goalless draw, despite coming up to a vociferous home crowd inside the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi on Friday.

They were unlucky not to take the lead after a penalty call was overturned by VAR.

After Friday’s encounter, the Eagles had their first training yesterday ahead of Tuesday’s second leg.

And Eguavoen stated the Eagles are close to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

“The team is in high spirit we are more than half way through I had a word with them and praise them because they were resilient,” Eguavoen said on NFF TV last night. “They worked hard in such an atmosphere so I think it was a fair result.

“Some players didn’t get involved now because one or two had a knock yesterday and recover training, people that played 90 and 94 minutes usually we do just a little bit and then rest. 

“People who didn’t play up to 70 minutes will do more, that’s exactly what we just did like few of them that had knocks like Chukwueze we just want to rest him and he can probably resume tomorrow.”

And speaking ahead of the reverse fixture, Eguavoen said the Eagles must go all out to seal qualification for the World Cup.

“We have to take the game to Ghana. We tried to take it to them yesterday (Friday) but they were tough at the back especially the defence led by Amartey he was good

“But we had two, three clear cut chances we should have buried but we were not just calm enough in the box. But we will try to work on how we will try to give those finals balls to our attackers to have easy passage to goal.”