Moses Simons excels as Nigeria begin to dream again

“It could have been six-nil. It could have been four-nil,” Austin Eguavoen said, confidently, after the win against Sudan, but it wasn’t and it wasn’t. Yet, his team had defeated Sudan quite comfortably they could afford to be wasteful up front. Three minutes into the second half, the job had been completed. Joe Aribo and Kelechi Iheanacho were substituted after 65 minutes and Ahmed Musa and Sadiq Umar were introduced.

By the time this was over, Nigeria were through to the next round with two wins out of two, but there were no wild celebrations, not from the players, at least. There were hearty exchanges of handshakes and smiles. The players converged, arms locked together, they formed a circle as Eguavoen addressed them. The various factions of the supporters club, in their colourful costumes, had continued performing and the team applauded them. Hands over their heads, they clapped. Optimism fully declared, belief reinstalled. And if it wasn’t so a month ago, after the opening game against Egypt, the fans had begun to dream. Anything was now possible. The players did, first.

The Nigeria supporters club

Moses Simon, who had been one of the players singled out for criticism during the second round of the World Cup qualifiers was now playing like someone whose shackles had been taken off. “It was one of my best games in the past two years,” he said, with an air of self-confidence on Friday- referring to the match against Egypt. By Saturday, he had raised the bar- his own bar.

Only two minutes had passed in the first half when Simon assisted the first goal with a delicate layoff for Samuel Chukwuze. It was the beginning of a complete performance that only he would round off. The second half had barely got off when he combined with Taiwo Awoniyi before slotting home with composure, something he seemed to lack under his previous coach. It was now three- Sudan’s goal proving only consolatory. As the ball rolled in, Simon leapt, doing his trademark backflip celebration. It was fun. And If the first game felt like a fluke or some sort of ‘manager bounce’, the doubts had now been erased. Simon had become reborn, liberated and without limits. “With the current coach, he gave me the freedom to bring what I have in my club,” he confessed. An opinion, you sense, is shared by all the players under Eguavoen.

Moses Simon celebrating against Sudan

Eguavoen had admitted that the final game would be experimental, a chance for some of the fringe players to get considerable minutes. Yet, the real business will be the knockouts, beginning with the round of 16 next week. The Super Eagles can no longer play with the underdog tag with which they came in. Things are different now. There is no Victor Osimhen or Emmanuel Dennis or even Gernot Rohr but these lads have risen to the occasion, playing with confidence, energy and excitement. Now, everyone knows what they are about. The expectations have become so high that elimination at this stage would be termed as a failure, even if it wasn’t so at the start.

Algeria, the defending champions, have not been stellar. They haven’t scored a goal in two and may not qualify for the next round. Senegal have scored just one goal in two matches against Zimbabwe and Guinea. Egypt are still a shadow of their successful selves. If anything, Nigeria have become the team to avoid. When you look around, there aren’t any teams they can’t beat. And the Super Eagles know this more than anyone else. Yet, it isn’t just about the teams they have beaten, but more about how they got there, the journey.

For some of them, it was simply a case of destiny. 14 of the 28 players called are debutants at this tournament. They are young too. Awoniyi had only just found a permanent club this season at Union Berlin and was scoring. He never got a senior appearance for Liverpool, a club he signed for after his exploits at the U17 World Cup in 2013. Even then, he wasn’t in the reckoning to start at the Nations Cup, if he at all got called up. He got only a handful of minutes under Rohr. And yet with the absence of Osimhen, Dennis, Odion Ighalo and Paul Onuachu, the shirt had become his and one of the goals scored by Nigeria too.

Zaidu Sanusi had become the first-choice left-back under Rohr, then his minutes at his club, Porto, reduced and he fell off the pecking order. Teammate, Jamilu Collins seemed like the man to start at the Afcon, but the defender was having issues at Paderborn and couldn’t resume in time for camping. Now, here was Zaidu, against Egypt, singing the National Anthem as one of the first eleven and putting in a solid performance.

The Super Eagles have gone from pretenders to contenders, from dark horses to favourites in one week. Asked if Nigeria, on account of the first two matches, were now the outright candidates to win the title, Eguavoen answered: “I claim it!”