Why Nigeria Should Beat Ghana Home and Away in the World Cup Playoffs - This March 2022

 

Ghana and Nigeria play their football almost in a similar style: they like attacking and do not have a well structured defense mechanism. Any of the team that is able to put a lot of pressure on the opponent defense, will get them to burgle. This is the summary of what will happen in the World Cup Playoffs this March and why I said Super Eagles will defeat Ghana black stars home and away. 

Of course, Ghana and Nigeria are close neighbors and their football structure as well as administration are so similar. They almost behave the same way, or will say, copy each other in football matters. For example, before the 2021 AFCON, Nigeria sacked their foreign coach and appointed an ex-international Austine Eguaveon as an interim coach. Then after AFCON, Ghana sacked their foreign coach too and also appointed an ex-international Otto Addo as their new interim coach. 

Funny enough, both the Nigerian coach Eguaveon and Ghanaian coach Addo were both defenders in their active days as players. 

Another thing that shows such copycat, is the fact that while Nigeria FA provided Eguaveon with a technical assistant in Emmanuel Amunike, Ghana FA also went ahead to provide Addo a technical advisor, Chris Hughton. 

The real fact is, Otto Addo and Chris Hughton may not be able to change the main structure or formation of Ghana national team in one week or so, when the players will gather for the World Cup Playoffs in Accra and Abuja. So, we are likely to see largely the same team that was in Cameroon last January. 

The Ghana team in Cameroon lacked the necessary attacking prowess going forward and their defense line were also very porous. The black stars came last in Group C with only one point and concede 5 goals to the chagrin of their fans. 

The team depended largely on their midfielders who also failed to come to the party. Though, Ghana coach hasn't released the list of players for the playoffs. But Addo has publicly move to bring back their legendary playmaker Sulley Muntari into the squad. That shows they are working to strengthen their midfield. 

I think what Ghana team needed first and foremost is a psychologist to boost the team spirit and mentality of the boys. The accusation of JUJU; such internal rangling and factions in the team may be their greatest undoing in this playoffs. 

All was going for the Super Eagles of Nigeria, with the kind of stellar performances they put up in the group stage of AFCON 2021, topped Group D with 9 points (100% win), but came to a rude shock 1-0 defeat against Tunisia. And many analysts has attributed the loose to  technical complacency or do I say, technical deficiency. 

NFF has been working to block all such loopwholes in team. And to think that the Super Eagles team in Cameroon wasn't in anyway the full squad of the Nigerian side. The Question will be, will the Ghanaian team be able to produce such quality to withstand the Super Eagles fire power.