With the qualification now in the bag, the The Nigeria Football Association (NFA) has been charged by President Goodluck Jonathan to win the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) by all means.
Stephen Keshi the coach of the Super Eagles says his Nations Cup squad is about 75 per cent complete.
The Nigeria’s coach has embarked on a gradual re-tooling of the Super Eagles after the team failed to qualify for the 2012 edition under Samson Siasia. With a testing friendly with Venezuela successfully played and won this month, Keshi says his team is close to readiness.
“We are still building, but I would say we are about seventy five percent complete,” Keshi said . “We know about 75 to 80 percent of the players who will make it.” Most watchers have pointed to the defence as the major area requiring work in the build-up to the continental showpiece, but the former defender says the door remains open in all areas “The remaining twenty-five percent includes the entire team. Now, we have an almost settled squad, but if we see a very good player for any position, we’ll give him the chance to show that he deserves a place in the squad.”
Nigeria goes into the tournament as one of the favourites, but Keshi says expectations should be tempered. “We are still building. Usually, we would have had two years to build, play qualifiers and prepare for 2014, but the changes to the Nations Cup means we have no time, so we just ask that Nigerians be patient and give this team time to develop.
Many have expressed fears of the inability of the Eagles to win the Nations cup, including former Internationals such as Jonathan Akpoborie who claims the Eagles lack quality. He said "coach Stephen Keshi has yet to resolve vital issues, which include players selection and a weak defence, which could cause the team’s downfall in South Africa .
“I’m not expecting Nigeria to win the Nations Cup because of all the issues dogging the team in recent time. I don’t believe we have the best team or the best coach as the tournament gets closer. We have to wait and see how each game turns out in South Africa,” Akpoborie says.
“I would be surprised if Nigeria win the Nations Cup next year. This is not based on pessimism but on the quality of their performances in recent games. The Eagles are not there yet; they don’t have what it takes to dominate Africa .
“Our attacking line is good, but the transition from the defence to the attack is very poor. The team do not have the right connection to link the attack. They’re always disjointed somewhere because of the weak defence.
“I’m expecting Keshi to spend the little time he has before the competition to work on the defence and evaluate what we really have.”
Akpoborie is worried that the introduction of new players could destabilise the team before January.
“The comeback of Obafemi Martins and the introduction of Shola Ameobi to the Eagles could cause an imbalance in the team. Keshi should be very careful with his selection and in the way he builds the team ahead of the 2014 World Cup,” he says.
“We have genuinely young and talented players who have played in the UEFA Champions League, for instance. These are the players that should be the core of the team, not the old ones he’s going back to. It is time for a change in the team.
“The Nations Cup is a qualifier for the 2014 World Cup so we should have our best players in South Africa. It is laughable to hope on players like Martins ahead of the World Cup, he’d be too old for the team. Same thing goes for Ameobi. He’ll be 33 when the World Cup kicks off.”
Another former Internation who share the same opinion is Samson Siasia who was the former Coach before Keshi took over, said "his greatest fears for the Stephen Keshi-led Eagles putting up a commendable performance in the South Africa 2013 Cup of Nations would the insufficient for the players to blend as a team.
They have everything but the next thing is how well they can understand themselves and what kind of tactics they will play. “We have good players, but the biggest issue would be the time to blend. If Keshi picks those he thinks that can help him, another problem would be how they are going to play as a team because of the limited number of time, they have to play friendly games and correct noticeable lapses,” he charged. Does he envisage Keshi facing selection problem between the players at home and those in the Diaspora fighting for attention, the Nigerian former international said: “I think Keshi is going to have problem in selection of players.”
“However, he played with many new players and he has to pick from those ones and join them with the ones he had already to see how well they can play together. If he manages the situation very well, I don’t think he will have much problem though,”
Despite all the negative fears, one man who strongly believes the Eagles has what it takes to win is the Dutch Tactician Clemense Westerhof who pioneered Nigeria’s first senior World Cup appearance in 1994 in the United States of America after winning the Nations Cup in Tunisia, He said"that he was impressed with the Super Eagles performance, saying they are capable of winning the trophy in South Africa more so with the absence of Indomitable Lions of Cameroon from the championship following a 3-2 aggregate defeat by Cape Verde. Coupled with the fact that Nigeria have good players and the coach is also good. Keshi is a good coach, yes, I know that (Keshi is a good coach)".
As it stands now the Nigerian President is not ready to take any of this all he wants is the Nations cup trophy in his office by the end of the competition in South Africa come Febuary 2013.
And to make that possible he has endorsed the sum of N15 million for each player if they go ahead to win the competition that is $95,000 each plus a daily allowances of around $5,000.
In the proposed budget for next year’s Africa Cup of Nations, each Super Eagles player will earn $10,000 for a win in the first round, where they are drawn against defending champions Zambia, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia.
This would translate into $30,000 each if they win all three first round matches, the same amount they also received when they qualified for the quarterfinal of the 2010 tournament in Angola.
However in Angola, the bonus was a winner-take-all one in the sense that the players were paid $30,000 each for going past the first round rather than being paid per game.
The team’s win bonus will then be reviewed upwards as it moves up in the knockout stage of the biennial competition.
Victory in the quarterfinal will fetch each player $15,000, while victory in the semi-final will see them $20,000-a-man richer.
And should the Eagles clinch Nigeria’s third Nations Cup trophy inside the magnificent Soccer City in Johannesburg on February 10, each player will pocket a win bonus of $30,000. The president went ahead to say "The Eagles of our time used to have a lot of follower ship, I don’t know if I can say that much now… Nigerians appreciate when you put in your best and when it doesn’t work out, they appreciate that too"
With so much allocated in the budget for the Nations cup, President Jonathan doesn't care how the Coach Stephen Keshi and his management team does it, All our President wants is the Cup!!!!
I wonder what will happen if Keshi doesn't bring back the Cup *just wondering*
To find out the Teams drawn together with the Super Eagles just follow this link.
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