Nations Cup: How far can the Eagles fly?

Exactly seven days from today, the 19th edition of the Africa Nations Cup will kick off in South Africa but action for the Super Eagles under the tutelage of Stephen Okechukwu Keshi will actually begin two days later when they confront fellow West Africans, Burkina Faso in their first game.
Last year when the competition was co-hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, Nigeria was conspicuously  absent after Eagles’ immediate past coach, debonair Samson Siasia bungled the country’s chances right on the turf of the Abuja National Stadium when a more determined Syli National of Guinea picked a deserving 2-2 to grab the  lone ticket from their group.

That disappointment caused Nigerian football fans to turn their backs on the Eagles and rightly or wrongly, vented their anger on the country’s football governing body, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF.
From 2008 in Ghana to 2010 in both Angola for the Nations Cup and South Africa for the World Cup, the Eagles were tutored by four coaches, Berti Vogts, Shaibu Amodu, Lars Lagerback and Siasia, a mix of  foreign and local players. Therefore when Siasia failed, the cry was for an indigenous coach and the lot fell on Keshi who had handled both Togo and Mali after his stint with Amodu in 2002.

He began by going back to the basics, like his former coach, Clemens Westerhof did while he was in the saddle between late 1989 and mid 1994, recruiting deserving home-based players from the local league for a rebuilding  process.
Even though Nigerians saw what he did with little Togo which he qualified for their first and only World Cup in 2006 in Germany, they were not quick to nurse any hope of he reviving the fortunes of the Eagles whom they booed each time they played on home soil.
That feeling gradually gave way to optimism when the so-called home boys spiced with a handful foreign-based players held their own even before big football Nations. The drubbing a Lionel Messi-inspired Argentina  handed the Eagles last year didn’t change their feeling much as the Eagles’ earlier 4-1 drubbing of the same team in Abuja, though without Messi, was a enough to massage the ego of the fans.
With Keshi in-charge, the Eagles did not struggle too much to qualify for the Nations Cup but Nigerians were not too optimistic they could pull any surprise in South Africa, their grouping with Zambia, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia notwithstanding.
However, following the 3-1 win over Venezuela and the pulsating 1-1  against a star-studded Catalonian side parading a bunch of Barcelona FC and Spain’s  World Cup winning players, the same fans were beginning to dream that the Eagles will not only qualify from their group but come  tops ahead Zambia and Burkina Faso until last Wednesday’s drab 0-0 draw with giant-killing Cape Verde made them have a rethink.
However, it is the belief of every Nigerian football follower that if the team could get the maximum points against Burkina Faso, a team that have not really given them a scare in the past, in their first match on January 21, it could boost their morale against Zambia when they meet on January 25 for an outright  win or draw at the worst to make qualification for the quarter final brighter.

Culled: Vanguard