Femi Solaja
With the match venues already confirmed, world’s football ruling body, FIFA at the weekend released the likely match-days for Super Eagles qualifying matches for the next World Cup finals in Qatar.
Super Eagles have been drawn alongside Lone Star of Liberia, Central African Republic (CAR) and Cape Verdes and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) last week confirmed Teslim Balogun Stadium as the new home ground of the team for World Cup qualifying round of matches.
FIFA released the official match days leaving the host country to pick a suitable day for their fixtures.
According to the match fixtures, Nigeria will begin her qualifying campaign at home to Liberia on either of the following dates 5th, 6th, 7th or 8thof June, 2021in Lagos.
Traditionally, Nigeria tends to play more of it home matches on Saturday date and it is not unlikely that 5thJunemay end up as the chosen date while the next day which is Sunday is still in-line with conventional match day for the team occasionally in the past.
Five days after the first match, the team will travel to Cape Verde for its first away tie which according to FIFA calendar comes up on any of the following dates; 11th, 12th, 13th or 14th of the month.
Interestingly, the match-day one and two fall within free period for the players as European football season would have ended.
Nigeria is expected to take on the Central African Republic in September, just a month into the new European seasons. The match in Lagos will likely come up 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th of the month.
The team will then travel to Liberia on either the, 7th, 8th or 9th of Octoberfor the return leg of the opening qualifying match and then rap up the schedule with the home match against Cape Verde in October.
The final qualifying round of matches which would be a straight knock out matches will have 10 qualifiers from all the groups to produce five nations that will represent the continent in the final tournament next year in Qatar.
