Super Eagles of Nigeria looks good to fly past the Atlas Lions of Morocco in the semifinal to lift her 4th title on Sunday in the grand finale at 70,000 capacity stadium in Rabat carting home the prestigious USD10m prize money.

Stats show that Nigeria should beat Morocco easy though soccer pundits believe the hurdle will be very difficult to scale yet these football experts are of the opinion that whoever wins the semifinal crunchy battle between Nigeria and Morocco will be crowned tournament winner on Sunday.

On current performances, Nigeria is it scoring 14 goals, the far highest from any team the nearest is Senegal with 11 goals though Nigeria conceded 4 goals and had 2 clean slates. Nigeria beat Tanzania 2-1; broke the neck of the Cartage Eagles of Tunisia 3-2; beat Uganda 3-1; going to the R16 stage to maul Mozambique 4-0 and then shot  out Algeria 2-0 in the quarterfinal.  Nigeria created record winning all their five games in this tournament.

Morocco’s strength is in the defence with 3 clean slates and conceding only one goal. The team scored 9 goals whether the solid Moroccan defence will collapse like London Bridge that is falling down or the German wall is a matter of how hard pressed the goal merchants of Nigeria is to avoid “football field bumps”.

Morocco may have the home advantage playing all their six games on the same venue but the Nigerians fear no foe having the excruciating pains of missing the world cup by whiskers. 

Nigeria has a constellation of stars not the few in Brahim Diaz and Ayoub El Kaabi. The team that retired the magical Riyad Mahrez of Algeria is counting on the new found unity to rubbish the Moroccan achievement at the Qatar world cup.

There is no stats sub title pushed out by CAF that Nigeria is not named. Sharing the MAN OF THE MATCH of 2-2 between Ademola Lookman and Brahim Diaz. Lookman having the highest assist of 4 in the tournament and co sharing highest chances at goal of 14-14 with now ousted Sadio Mane of Senegal. On Shots at goal Victor Osimhen has 20 to 13 of Diaz of Morocco. There remains a fact that Nigeria possesses individual skill might.

On team performance, Nigeria has become the AFRICAN  NIGHTMARE with highest team score of 14  followed by two ousted teams in Senegal (11) and Ivory Coast (10); highest team shots of Nigeria 84 followed by Ivory Coast with 83 and Senegal 82 with Morocco not in sight. Then comes the passes that show ability to control a game, where Nigeria is second stringing 2,466 passes to Senegal’s 2,489 and then Senegal again 3rd with 2,250 passes. No Morocco in sight,

There is a talk of eminent defending midfield player and Captain Wilfred Ndidi who will be missing against Morocco because he is on match suspension. He collected a yellow against Mozambique in the R16 game and another unnecessary yellow against Algeria in the quarterfinal. Ndidi will be replaced by indomitable Raphael Onyedika who overlaps, shoots and heads beautifully.

Morocco is staying back in Morocco where the team sent of Cameroon in the semis and indeed played their games but Nigeria started the psychological tactics by flying to Fez where they camped and played four of their five matches and would fly to Rabat for the all-important match on Wednesday. A foreign Journalist said the flights itself is psychological to show Morocco they will be raided aerially as Lions are only terrestrial.

If the officiating is good and the Moroccans play neat and straight football fans may have the best of AFCON 25 but anyone with health issues is advised to stay away as the fans may need to sit at the edge of their seats and bite nails throughout the match while the two teams with the Best gallery of supporters will be busy operating their drums and wind instruments. 

Nigeria and Morocco met severally. I was there live to cover Nigeria versus Morocco AFCON semifinal at the National Stadium, Lagos when Felix Owolabi scored from a screaming shot that moved Nigeria to meet Algeria in the finals. The perhaps memorable matches were a CHAN match of 25th January 2014 when Nigeria beat Morocco 4-3 in Cape Town and another CHAN final in Casablanca on 4th February 2018   when Morocco clipped Nigeria 4-0.  

Nigeria ranked 38 in the world is making her 21st appearances at the mundial winning the title three times in 1980, 1994 and 2013 won Silver five times and Bronze eight times.

The Atlas Lions of morocco ranked 11 in the world appeared 20 times at the mundial winning the tile once in 1976 in Ethiopia, winning the Silver in 2004, never won Bronze but placed 4th twice.