Super Eagles must win, yet it may not count

The Super Eagles will, today, confront the Mambas of Mozambique in a game that has not attracted much interest from football fans across the country. Our Eagles have virtually lost out in the race for the 2010 World Cup ticket but they still need to win against Mozambique, perhaps to postpone Tunisia's celebration till the last day of the qualifying campaign.

Tunisia are comfortable with two points ahead of our team and they host Kenya's Harambee Stars about the same time our Eagles will be playing the Mambas. After securing a vital draw in Abuja last month, Tunisia's Carthage Eagles will clinch the ticket if they win their final two games.

Consequently, it will only turn out to be a mere formality even if our boys record high-margin victories in their own final two games against Mozambique at home today and against Kenya in Nairobi next month. Low key The build up to this game has been low-keyed compared to the last game against the Carthage Eagles. Almost 30 players are available for selection ahead of today's match but it does not look like the national team players have landed in the country.

It never looked like an atmosphere expected ahead of a World Cup qualifier, simply because the fans are tired of enduring disappointments from their national team. In the last two home games against Kenya and Tunisia, football lovers were glad to identify with the Eagles.

From Lagos to Abuja, Nigerians began to wear green-white-green national colours, especially after our boys claimed a shocking 1-0 win over France on June 2 in St. Etienne. It was a professional performance that looked to have stirred a renaissance of some sort in the Super Eagles.

And Nigerians responded in appreciation of that feat. Thousands of fans thronged the magnificent Abuja National Stadium to catch glimpses of their "super stars" in training for the two games. Celebrities from the entertainment industry were not left out such that the Nigeria Football Federation had to put some measures in place to guide against the fans' enthusiasm.

Even the journalists were prevented from getting "too close" to the players while photojournalists could only take photographs from the stands. Sadly, everybody appeared to have deserted the Eagles with their training sessions recording as low as 20 spectators, with no "life" at their new camp, Bolton Whites Hotel. Boost Meanwhile, the Eagles have been boosted by the return of strikers Obafemi Martins and Yakubu Aiyegbeni after injuries kept them out of the team, it is yet to be seen what impact they are capable of making to our World Cup qualification.

Incidentally, Martins' last game for the Eagles was against Mozambique in Maputo on March 29 which ended goalless, our first game in this final round of qualifiers. The Wolfsburg striker was guilty of missing gilt-edge chances that could have earned us the three points.

Aiyegbeni is returning after recovering from Achilles tendon injury that kept him out for almost 10 months of competitive football, his last game for Nigeria coming against Colombia in an international friendly in Cali, in November last year. However, ruled out of today's game are Mikel Obi, Dickson Etuhu and our leading scorer, Ikechukwu Uche who has netted four times in the qualifier.