AFCON: How Super Eagles can qualify from group after draw against Equatorial Guinea

Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau make up a challenging Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2023 Group A that Nigeria must pass through in order to clinch their fourth AFCON title. Only two slots are available for automatic qualification out of the group, with another option to qualify as one of the four best third-placed teams.

In their first group game at the AFCON 2023, the Super Eagles of Nigeria recorded a frustrating 1-1 draw against Equatorial Guinea just few hours after the hosts Ivory Coast kick-started the competition with a comfortable 2-0 win over Guinea-Bissau.

Before the game, Super Eagles were under pressure to get a maximum of three points against a lowly ranked  Nzalang Nacional who have never won or drawn against Nigeria.

This disappointing result against Equatorial Guinea begs the question: how can Nigeria qualify from group A?

Osimhen and the Super Eagles must as a matter of fact try to win Ivory Coast ( in what could be the highlight of the competition), a team that Nigeria has a poor record against on 18th January, 2024 before facing Guinea-Bissau in their final group stage on 24th January, 2024.

Both of which Nigeria must not drop a point if they have any plan of qualifying automatically to the knockout stage and not as one of the four best performing third-placed teams or worst, getting knocked out from the group stage.

The last time Nigeria did not make it out of the AFCON group stage was in 1982. Although it may seem unlikely now considering the quality of players in Super Eagles team, however their recent patchy performance doesn’t give fans much hope.

Ivory Coast have a better head-to-head record over the Eagles at AFCON, Equatorial Guinea defeated Algeria, who were the defending champions, in the last AFCON and they have just forced Nigeria to share the spoils in the their AFCON 2023 group stage game, while Guinea-Bissau stunned Nigeria at home during the qualification round. The Super Eagles have their work measured out for them in Côte d’Ivoire.

See also: Revealed: See how much AFCON 2023 winners will earn