Amaju Pinnick

By Taiwo Adelu.

Ahead of the final stage of the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying series, President of Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, Amaju Pinnick has allayed fears of Super Eagles getting a tough draw.

The Confederation of African Football, CAF, is expected to hold the draws for the 20 teams that scaled the second round hurdles of African qualifiers for the World Cup which were concluded few days ago. The draws will be held at CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt on 24 June, 2016.

The countries that successfully made it to the last round are Gabon, Zambia, Uganda, DR Congo, Morocco, Guinea, Libya, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Egypt, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Cape Verde, Senegal and Mali.

They are expected to be grouped into four teams of five groups. The teams will play a home and away matches at the end of which a team will qualify for the World Cup from the each of the five groups.

Pinnick, however, said that the NFF is not worried about the seeding for the last round of the qualifiers and won’t lose sleep over who the opponents of the Eagles would be after the draws.
“Our concern is to prepare the senior national team for the group stage of the qualifiers. We believe that all the 20 teams that made the last stage are African super powers who merited their qualifications. So the best we can do is to prepare the Eagles for the task ahead and ensure that Nigeria qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, “ Pinnick said.

Nigeria secured their qualification to the final stage of the African qualifying series for the 2018 World Cup after the Eagles handled by Coach Sunday Oliseh beat Swaziland 2-0 in the two legs fixtures this month.