Nigeria’s head coach, Augustine Eguavoen, has confessed that the Black Stars were better than he expected after both teams played out a 0-0 draw in the first leg of their 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying play-offs in Kumasi.
Nigeria were favorites going into the game but a solid display, especially from Ghana’s defense led by Leicester City man Daniel Amartey, meant Nigeria were limited to just two opportunities throughout the whole match.
Speaking ahead of the return leg, Eguavoen said Nigeria would try and take the game to Ghana again, after trying and failing to do so in the first leg leg.
“The team is in high spirit we are more than half way through I had word with them and praised them because they were resilient,” Eguavoen told NFF TV
“They worked hard in such an atmosphere in Kumasi and so I think it was a fair result.
“We have to take the game to Ghana. We tried to take it to them on Friday but they were tough at the back especially the defence led by Amartey, he was good.
“But we had two, three clear chances we should have buried but we were just not calm enough in the box. But we will try to work on how we’ll give those final balls to our attackers to have easy passage to goal.”
The return leg is scheduled for the Moshood Abiola Stadium at 5pm on Tuesday.
Winner of that tie will book one of Africa’s five slots for the 2022 World Cup to be held in Qatar later this year.