By
Eniola Olatunji 

Much hyped Super Eagles of Nigeria on Tuesday night at the Fez stadium in Morocco under performed as the team struggled to beat highly rated Taifa Stars of Tanzania 2-1 in an AFCON Group C opening match.

Nigeria parading super stars in football and ranked 38 in the world was expected to demolish the 112 ranked Tanzanian who though appearing for the 5th time at the tournament has never gone beyond the group stages whereas Nigeria has won the title three times gotten the Silver medal 5 times and bagged the Bronze 8 times.

Nigeria typically in the modern style of playing lost a flurry of chances with Star boy at the Fez Stadium, Victor Osimhen missing at least three glaring chances though VAR over turned Ref Dahanu Beida of Mauritania to declare osimhen offside in the 47th minute. 

Back from injury defender and over lapping gem, Semi Ajayi got a floater from Alex Iwobi (who keeps making late decision on what to do with the ball) to nod Nigeria’s first goal in the 36th minute to beat the Tanzanian Goalkeeper whose first stepping out was against the continentally mighty Super Eagles as he dived, jumped and punched away several Nigerian misdirected forays. Ajayi was declared the Man of the Match.

The Tanzanians depended on long passes and fast breaks to beat Nigeria that played a slow game that the Tanzanians love so Charles M’Mombwa got a cross pass in the 50th minute to score the equalizer and every viewing center in Nigeria spontaneously went silent like a grave yard with fans reportedly biting their nails and many turned to beer Parlor analysts blaming the players and coach for a bad day.

Football pundits had discussed on many Nigerian media that the gesture of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to fulfill promises of Houses, Money and national award would ginger the Super Eagles “to kill” the Taifa Stars (the gesture of the Nigerian Government was the first ever fast fulfilled gesture in history having made it in 2023 and fulfilled it in 2025). Not even the lock out of the world cup motivated the team to be in a killer mood.

However, former African Footballer of the Year, the second of such Nigeria paraded against Tanzania, Ademola Lookman got an assist again from Alex Iwobi in the 52nd minute to seal the win of the match.

Nigeria had 21-11 shots at goal with 11-3 shots on target of which 4-1 as big win chances; Nigeria stringed 509-348 passes and had 59-41% ball possession scoring 6-6 corner kicks without conversions. Nigeria’s struggle showed in the number of foul calls against them 18-5 as some Nigerian players gave terribly bad tackles in desperation but Nigeria was lucky to escape with only one yellow card per kindness of the Mauritanian Ref Beida. 

The Carthage Eagles of Tunisia late Tuesday spanked the Ugandan Cranes 3-1 in the other Group C match. Wonderful Elias Achouri became the second player to get a brace as he scored  in the 40th minute from Abdi pass and sealed victory in the 64th minute. Elleyes Skhiri had gotten an assist from 22 year old Hanniball Mejbri in the 10th minute to register the curtain raiser.

Uganda got a consolatory goal in added time of 90+2 minutes from Denis Omedi.

Tunisia therefore tops group C with 3 points scoring 3 goals and conceding one; Nigeria is 2nd with 3 points scoring 2 goals and conceding one; Tanzania is 3rd with no point scoring one goal and conceding 2 while Uganda is 4th with no point scored one goal and conceded 3.
 
Group C 2nd round matches will be played on Saturday 27th December when Uganda will play Tanzania at 1830 hours and the crucial group decider between Nigeria and Tunisia is at 2100 hours.

It will be the turn of group E when Burkina Faso lock horns with Equatorial Guinea at 1330 hours; still in group E at 1600 hours will be Algeria versus Sudan. Then group F will come to round of 1st group matches when Ivory Coast battles Mozambique at 1830 hours before Cameroon faces Gabon at 2100.