The draw for the African zone of the qualifying tournament for the 2018 World Cup will staged this afternoon in Cairo, Egypt, with Nigeria fans holding their breath over who their darling Super Eagles will come up against on the road to Russia 2018.
In what could be the toughest World Cup qualifiers yet in Africa, fingers are crossed on what the draw will throw up and even the top seeds in Pot 1 know they are also in for a rough ride.
For Nigeria, we all saw this coming and we all knew this would happen – the reality of not being top seeds caused by a poor run of results lately.
The recent poor form the Super Eagles have experienced means confidence is short and even if they get what could be the softest pairings on paper, not so many in Africa’s most populous nation would be so confident.
So, what are the odds? And what are the permutations?
First, let’s look at the pots and see the countries in there.
Pot 1 has Africa’s top-ranked teams: Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia, while Pot 2 has Cape Verde, Congo DR, Egypt, Mali and Nigeria.
In Pot 3, there are Cameroon, Congo, Guinea, Morocco and South Africa. Burkina Faso, Gabon, Libya, Uganda and Zambia make up Pot 4.
So, for Nigeria, no escaping any of Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal or Tunisia. Tough, isn’t it?
The ‘easiest pairing’ the Super Eagles could get would be to have Senegal (Pot 1), South Africa (Pot 3) and Uganda/Zambia (Pot 4).
On paper, that should be Nigeria’s ideal pairings. That is not to take anything away from the teams, however. If anything, the Super Eagles have shown to be inconsistent when playing the so-called smaller teams.
Having Senegal, South Africa and Uganda/Zambia in the same group is not a guarantee they will make Russia 2018, but that should be the easiest pairings they could have from the draw.
And knowing that only the best team from each group will qualify, there is no prize for being second-best.
The toughest pairings they could have would be to have Algeria/Ghana (Pot 1), Morocco (Pot 3), and Gabon (Pot 4).
So, however you choose to look at it, there are no easy draws here, but there’s always a lesser evil between two evils.