The Super Eagles could draw the number one ranked team in Africa,Cote D'Ivoire or the free-scoring Algeria or better still arch-rivals Ghana in the group phase of the qualifying tournament for the 2018 World Cup should the FIFA rankings be used to seed teams like it was done in the previous two rounds.
The Eagles are among the 20 teams that have qualified for the third round of the qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 20 teams will be drawn into five round-robin, home-and-away groups of four teams each.
According to FIFA,the draw date, location and procedure for round three will be confirmed by the end of round two by the Organising Committee for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.
With the round two games concluded,it is believed that FIFA could retain the use of the monthly rankings used in the previous two rounds to determine the top seeds as well as the remaining seeds for the qualifiers.
If that is used,then the Super Eagles' recent slide to probably its worst ever-FIFA ranking will ensure they are not among the top seeds.
What this means is that the Eagles could draw any of the fist four ranked nations in Africa viz CIV,Algeria who mauled Tanzania 7-0 on Tuesday,Ghana or Cape Verde.
The Eagles will also draw any of the four teams in the second pot viz the star-studded Teranga Lions of Senegal,Cameroun who they beat 3-0 in an international recently,Tunisia or Congo.
Nigeria will however avoid any of the teams in the third pot viz Guinea, DR Congo and Egypt.
The five group winners will qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
COMMENTS
Any which way it goes it’s gonna b a Tuff group for the super eagles. Hence, we need mur concentration and commitment on the path of our players to be in Russia.