The bell tolls already.
From December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026, the world will be treated to the best of African football, once again.
My immediate feeling is that Nigeria can win AFCON 2025, but the Super Eagles will not!
It has been a battle between my heart (for patriotic reasons) that wills the Eagles to win it, and my head that tells me they are not good enough to win it this time around.
The draws of the TotalEnergies CAF African Cup of Nations, AFCON 2025, were concluded last week in Rabat, Morocco. The road to the most prestigious football championship in Africa was, thus, flung open to analysts and soothsayers, and the wagering war has begun.
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So far, I see nothing in my Crystal ball that even remotely suggests that the Super Eagles are one of the favorites to win it.
Can they? Yes, on paper.
Will they? In my realistic consideration, far from it.
However, in football, anything can happen, more so that, as the cliche goes, ‘there are no more minnows in African football’.
For many AFCONs before now, my support for the national team of Nigeria has been unflinching, and my optimism upbeat and infectious. This has been based on candid assessments, without reckless bias. The eventual results have largely fallen short of my predictions. So, I am not an authority on the subject of predicting who wins.
This time around, my head and my heart are in conflict. My first glimpse at the Crystal ball since the draws were made last week shows that on January 18, 2026, there is no eagle perching on the coveted trophy and lifting it from the Mediterranean Sea southwards across the Sahara Desert to the Savannah grasslands and the little tropical (rain) forests of Nigeria.
What I rather see is the biggest, most successful and, probably, the best AFCON in the history of the championship, with hosts Morocco getting to the finals.
Morocco are the most prepared nation to host AFCON since South Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010. Morocco started even before then in the 1990s, working hard to be the first country in Africa to host the World Cup. That gave them an upstart for the Nations Cup. They have been unrelenting in preparing, enhancing and expanding their infrastructure and fixing their country. To make the dream come true, no country in Africa has been more determined, worked harder and prepared more to host the World Cup, and have converted all of that to hosting the African Cup of Nations.
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That effort has transformed Morocco into a major global tourist destination and some of its cities, with their rich historic past, have been restored and have become truly exotic and enchanting places to visit. The country has moved up the ladder of developing countries with first class airports, hotels, medical facilities, good roads, modern transportation, communication systems and more welcoming people.
That’s why for visitors going to Morocco for the African Cup of Nations they will find the country a far cry from the very conservative Islamic country that we once knew and experienced in the 1970s and 1980s.
By the way, I played one of the best matches and scored one of the two best goals of my career in Morocco against Maghreb Fez FC of Morocco in 1984 – a solo race from defense to the other end, past 5 defenders (including the goalkeeper) ending in a goal that took Shooting Stars FC to the Semi-finals of that year’s Club Champions League.
The best of the goals I scored in my career was in a World Cup qualifying match against Cote D’Ivoire in Bouake in 1981 – breaking loose at top speed from the Nigerian defense through almost the length of the field, racing past ‘wicked’ defenders to register a goal that broke the backs of the Ivorians.
Everyone going to AFCON 2025 in Morocco should be prepared for a holiday of a lifetime, a feast of hospitality, unique tourist attractions, and a first-class football experience. The Championship will be played through two of the most important public holidays and festive seasons in the world – Christmas and the New Year.
The quality of the 6 grounds to be used and their turfs will blow the mind. They are, undoubtedly, some of the best in the world. No player or team will have any excuse not to play football to the limit of their ability on those lush grounds.
That’s where the proper analysis of the teams begins – on the neutral grounds of 6 of the best football turfs in the world.
Nigeria are in AFCON 2025 Group C along with Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda.
Group C is not the ‘Group of Death’. That distinction belongs to two other groups with historically stronger teams lumped together.
Under normal circumstances, Group C should be a walk-over for Nigeria and Tunisia, with both sharing the top two spots. However, that is on paper. A closer look at the Nigerian team reveals a different reality.
To start with, in the past 10 years at least (except during AFCON 2023), the Super Eagles have been anything but impressive and consistent. The team has remained fundamentally the same, with largely the same set of players, playing the same ‘lazy’ style, without conviction, authority or consistency.
None of the last 4 or even 5 coaches has been able to imprint a great style and make a solid team out of the Eagles. The managers never have enough time with the team to impact much. The quality of players available have also been rather suspect and average. Only a handful of exceptional players have emerged. The mixed backgrounds and foundations of the players are a major challenge. Many are hewn in Europe, never played in Nigeria, and lacked the typical physicality and die-hard mentality of home-grown players.
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More importantly, the coaches hired in that period are paperweight, very ordinary, and without depth in records of achievement and credentials.
For the AFCON 2025 edition, Nigeria goes to Morocco with one of the least qualified of all coaches ever hired for the national team, a neophyte that cut his teeth in big time football coaching only about a year ago during the last AFCON. His team, Mali, lost against the weakest team to ever win AFCON in the competition’s history – Ivory Coast of 2024.
Finally, Nigeria is an old team, even though it has several young players in the team and a few more are coming through. Upfront it packs strikers that should break the defense of any team, but without quality players in the mid-field, the strikers flounder and struggle to deliver goals.
Nigeria’s great weakness is the absence of a strong midfield. Until that area is fixed the Super Eagles will remain predictably inconsistent, oscillating between brilliance in one match and poor performance in another.
The defense line is also ‘aging’ by football standards. Unless some new, younger, stronger, more ruthless and better players come through the ranks and strengthen the defense (with William Troost-Ekong, the heart of the team, gradually entering the evening of his career) the Super Eagles might still go some distance but, surely, not with a rugged defense to take them to the finish line.
Meanwhile, there are 24 participating teams and matches to be played over a one-month period.
Between now and the start of the championship it would matter a great deal what the Super Eagles do, which new players are introduced and how well their preparations go.
In summary, AFCON 2025 will be a blast, a great championship for everyone. Morocco will be great hosts.
The big question is: ‘which country do I think shall win the championship?’
I refuse to put my head on the chopping block. I am rather closing my eyes and playing safe by tipping Morocco as champions.
As for the Super Eagles, I shall have to look more closely again before placing any wager. They will come through the group stage unscathed, and that’s how far I can stretch out my neck until the next 10 months show me more.
Meanwhile, I shall prepare to join the party heading to Morocco to provide the best coverage of the games. I await corporate takers willing to join me on that adventurous experience.
