Nigeria to Battle Gabon in 2026 World Cup Playoff




No one could have thought of Nigeria being dragged into play off when the draws for the 2026 World Cup were made. Nigeria had South Africa, Lesotho, Benin, Zimbabwe and Rwanda as opponents.

But as usual, we like to make things difficult for ourselves when qualification was on  a platter. Only South Africa were the real rivals, not even Gernot Rohr's led Benin. But in terms of quality of players, Nigeria stood head above shoulder to the rest,

Your guess was as good as mine as the NFF began to bungle it by dilly dallying on position of the head coach. Jose Peseiro  took the Super Eagles to silver in 2024 AFCON, originally slated for 2023. He was retained despite talks about his firing and led  Nigeria to two costly draws against Lesotho at home and Zimbabwe away before he got fired. A win in those two matches could have changed the course of the qualifiers.  


Finidi George also led Nigeria to one draw and a loss to South Africa and Benin, which could later prove fatal to our automatic qualification. He resigned.

Then Eric Chelle got appointed and has done well so far with 14 points out of possible 18. His only blip was the last minute equaliser agaisnt Zimbabwe at home. 

Nigeria on the last day had a miraculous escape scoring four- getting past two since the qualifiers- with Victor Osimhen scoring a hattrick and Frank Onyeka late goal sealing a playoff spot for Nigeria, It was a day full of drama as second placed teams were not sure of qualification until last minute. Burkina Faso thought they had done enough by beating Ethiopia 3-1 at home and celebrated. But in the end, Nigeria's +7 goals advantage gave and edge as the last top four second placed team.

Nigeria will battle Gabon in the semi final of the playoff in Morocco next month and then take on the winner between Cameroun and DR Congo for the final Africa slot. We still go to USA in March for an intercontinental playoff. i'm being optimistic.



South Africa topped the group and join Cote D'Ivoire, Cape Verde, Ghana, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Senegal, 

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