Super Eagles Set For South Africa Clash

Nigeria kick-off their quest for a berth in the 2019 ANC on Saturday in Uyo after failing to make it to the last two editions in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Sacrilege for the west Africans considering how football crazy the country is and that they have appeared in 17 previous competitions and five World Cups.

Facing them will be Bafana Bafana ranked 11th in Africa and 65th in the world and this in past would probably have prompted a snicker from the Nigeria faithful. After all South Africa has never beaten them in any competitive game and only once in a friendly when most the Eagles big guns were MIA. Ironically the man who lead the Bafana charge then, Stuart Baxter, is back in the saddle and hoping to reproduce the magic of November the 17th 2004 in Johannesburg. Two of his key player in achieving this will be Itumeleng Khune at goalkeeper and Dean Furman in midfield, both who he has already identified as the kind of battlers he needs for the big game.

While Khune’s experience and skill needs no explanation some may raise eye brows at Furman. Certainly not in Nigeria where the mercurial midfielder has always performed amazingly against them. Sure it may have been Rantie who circumvented Enyeama twice on the way to scoring a brace in November 2014, but it was Captain Furman who sealed the Bafana middle and turned it into a sticky mouse-trap for the likes of Emenike, Musa, and Ikechukwu Uche expelling them from the Equatorial Guinea ANC.

A year later it was Furman again at the Mbombela Stadium who spearheaded the South African defence against Nigeria by playing deeper than normal and again clawing out a 1-1 draw.

Furman is a rugby player in a footballers body and we say that without any insinuation of being dirty He plays feisty and isn’t pushed off the ball. His tackles are mostly on point and at six feet he isn’t easily beaten with the lob unless it is weighed perfectly. With Mike Obi out for Nigeria it will be interesting to see how he fares against the talent wise, overloaded Nigerian midfield, that Rohr is still tinkering with.

Considering that the Sparrow Hawks dominated the Eagles (despite losing 3-0) in their last friendly in ball possession ( 52% v 48% ) the table is set for an exciting duel as Nigeria is still not playing coherently in this part of the field. Dial up the knob on drama since the Eagle’s Onazi and most likely replacement for Mikel as midfield General, plays with as much temperament as Furman.

Nigeria is about to play three of the biggest games in her modern football history and they come back to back to back. In the first two, against Bafana and then Cameroon for Russia 2018 on the 28th of August, they must hold serve at home. Its as simple, and yet as difficult as that.

Up front with his best player Victor Moses out due to toe surgery, Rohr must get his strikers on point and to stop being so wasteful. In addition to his midfield dilemma described above, he must also have his back line step up continue to be stingy. Sadly for the German, all the good work done so far in this department keeps falling apart each time Balogun picks up another injury and cant dress – as is the case again.

However most pundits agree that most importantly Rohr must render Furman useless by making him chase the ball right from the opening whistle to the very end, and keep him out of position. This means Nigeria must stretch the game and find a way to use their speed not just to reach the South African 18, but then pepper Khune with grass cutting screamers.