Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr has said his confidence that the Super Eagles will qualify for the 2018 World Cup has been boosted by his team’s 1-0 win over Tanzania.
The Eagles needed a late goal by Kelechi Iheanacho to go past Tanzania but Rohr said he saw enough in his winning start that Nigeria could qualify for a sixth World Cup at the expense of Algeria, Cameroon and Zambia.
The Franco-German coach used the Tanzania match to prepare his team for an October 3 World Cup qualifier in Zambia before they welcome Algeria the following month.
“I’m happy I won my first match,” began Rohr. “We have a good chance of qualifying for the World Cup. A team that failed to qualify for the AFCON needs confidence and the confidence is coming back gradually.
“We played well and any team who created 12, 14 chances in a match, that tells you it’s a good team. We were wasteful but we will work on our finishing.”
He further said he looks forward to having Alex Iwobi and Oghenekaro Etebo, who both missed yesterday’s match on account of injury. “We need to look at the player in Arsenal (Iwobi)and the player who scored four goals in match at the Olympics (Etebo),” he said.
