Nigerians must accept Cape Verde draw was mission accomplished – Obuh

Former Nigeria U-17 and U-20 coach John Obuh said the Super Eagles achieved their target of a draw against Cape Verde Islands after settling for 1-1 in their final group match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. After beating Liberia 2-0 in Tangier on Saturday, Nigeria were focused on avoiding a defeat against the […]

Former Nigeria U-17 and U-20 coach John Obuh said the Super Eagles achieved their target of a draw against Cape Verde Islands after settling for 1-1 in their final group match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

After beating Liberia 2-0 in Tangier on Saturday, Nigeria were focused on avoiding a defeat against the Blues Sharks on Tuesday to progress to the play-off stage as Group C leaders.

Victor Osimhen’s early strike was cancelled out by Stopira in the sixth minute as both teams struggled to net a winner at the Teslim Balogun Stadium.

Obuh, in his reaction to the result, urged the fans to accept the draw as he expects the Super Eagles to improve on their performance ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations in January and the World Cup play-offs in March 2022.

“They have qualified and that’s the mission. I’m sure they will work on whatever that they did not get right in the game,” Obuh told GOAL.

“They went for a draw and they got it. If a win was what we were looking for to qualify, they would definitely go all out to secure the three points.

“The issue is, I think before they played the game they knew that a draw would push them through so I remember some time ago in Nigeria when we were looking for outright three points and we lost that particular match, not knowing that a draw was better for us. Although we could not get three points yesterday, a draw gave us something similar to a win.

“Let’s accept the draw and we can look forward to improving the team as we prepare for the play-offs and the AFCON.”