Super Eagles look
to shock the Elephants in
proverbial David versus
Goliath battle Nigeria, rated 10th on the
continent will be attempting
to beat Cote d'Ivoire, the
number one ranked team
and overwhelming favourites
for the 2013 Afcon title.
Without doubt, the Super Eagles
of Nigeria are the underdogs in
this Africa Cup of Nations
encounter and the manner of
qualification from Group C showed
why they are considered so. On the other hand, the Elephants of
Cote d'Ivoire are the
overwhelming favourites and
showed how strong they are by
making nine changes in their last
group match against Algeria on Wednesday. And to further underline their
readiness to win this title at last,
they came back from two goals
down to draw 2-2 with Algeria, so
with all this in mind it is clear that
the Eagles will have a tough task on Sunday. But that is the beauty
of football – though Didier Drogba
and his team are favourites, they
must still prove it over 90
minutes or beyond on Sunday in
Rustenburg. The all-time head to head record
is in Cote d'Ivoire's favour with
five wins against four for Nigeria
and in the Afcon history, they
have played five times with two
wins each but the Ivorians have had the better in the recent past
with two 1-0 victories in 2006
and 2008. Sunday is another day, however,
and the Eagles need to raise their
game to match and fight the
Elephants for a semi-final place. The Ivorians will be pinning their
transition in attack on Gervinho,
as he has been in fine form for
the Elephants, scoring two goals
in two matches. There is also the
powerhouse, Yaya Toure, who will most likely win the midfield battle
against the Eagles. But the Elephants have a dubious
central defensive pairing of
Soulemanye Bamba and Kolo
Toure or Didier Zokora, and a
slightly above average goalkeeper
in Boubacar Barry. So the only chink in Cote d'Ivoire's armour is
targeting the middle of their
defence, but will the Nigerians get
that far in order to exploit this
weakness? It can be done but the players
must completely buy into the
concept that they will have to
defend for 90 minutes and must
be very disciplined in marking the
spaces that Salomon Kalou and Gervinho will be looking to exploit.
The Ivorians also have an
inexperienced coach in Sabri
Lamouchi – so if there is a hiccup
to the favoured scenario, he
could panic. So it is defence into attack, using
the classic grab and run format
because man for man, Nigeria
cannot withstand the Elephants. Fegor Ogude will be absent, which
is a body blow to the Eagles as he
would have relished the battle
with Yaya Toure, Didier Zokora
and Ya Konan, who are expected
to be the midfield trident for Cote d'Ivoire, but Mikel has been
cleared for the match by Caf. The last time both teams met at
the Nations Cup in 2008, Salomon
Kalou scored the only goal of that
encounter. The Elephants, who
are favourites for the title, will
be hoping to re-enact that score line. This time the score line could
be a mirror image of what has
happened recently between both
teams.