Former Nigeria star Tijani Babangida has stated it will be tough for Nigeria to qualify for the 2018 World Cup that will be held in Russia.
He said that at the moment the team is playing poorly and does not have any chance of making it to the finals. For him, Nigeria needs a miracle if ever they are going to make it to the World Cup.
Babangida came to prominence in the Nigeria team featuring players such as Jay JayOkocha and Sunday Oliseh, which participated at the 1998 World Cup in France. He is currently working as a coach and was Oliseh’s assistant when the latter was managing the Nigerian team.
He said that the problem with Nigerian football is that there is not a proper structure in place. He said that while other countries are busy preparing their teams for the World Cup qualifiers, Nigeria does not have a permanent coach at the head of the team. They change managers too frequently, and this does not give enough time to prepare a quality team. He said that there need to be some fort of stability at the head of the national team if they want Nigeria to progress and do well in the future.
He said that the fact that Nigeria was not seeded will make things even more difficult for the qualification. Indeed they have been drawn in a group consisting of Cameroon, Algeria and Zambia and Tijani Babangida believes that only a miracle can take them out of this group. However he does not want to lose hope as anything can happen in football but he knows that it will be very difficult.
For this to happen, there needs to be more preparation and above all the appointment of a permanent coach for Nigeria.