Nigeria revived hopes of still making it to the 2026 FIFA World Cup In United States of America, Canada and Mexico with a hard fought 1-0 victory against Rwanda on Saturday.
The win also changed the colouration of the Group C standings with Nigeria now in third position behind South Africa, and Benin Republic.
After matchday seven, South Africa lead the pack with 16 points, Benin Republic is second with 11 points, Nigeria in Third with 10 points, Rwanda in fourth with eight points, Lesotho in fifth with six points and Zimbabwe sitting bottom with four points.
Match day eight will likely give a direction on what is likely to happen in Group C with Nigeria and South Africa going for broke as the winner of that match at Bloemfontein will to a large extent determine what happens in the group.
Meanwhile, Nigerians left Uyo on Saturday relieved that there is still hope of qualifying for the mundial courtesy of Tolu Arokodare’s 51st minute goal which was all the Super Eagles needed to heave a sigh of relief.
Rwanda had managed a perfect game plan of sitting back and try to catch the Eagles on a counter and succeeded with the plans in the first half.
Arokodare, who came in as a substitute at the beginning of the second half for Frank Onyeka, used his big size well enough to capitalised on a mix-up in the Rwandan box to score the winner which went in after crashing against the crossbar.
Despite dominating throughout, the Eagles could not create enough clear cut chances to increase the tally, while the Amavubi also gained more confidence and started coming out and pushing for an equaliser,but solid deefnding from Calvin Bassey and Benjamin Fredrick with support from the flanks from Ola Aina and Bruno Onyemaechi kept them at bay.
The substitution of Victor Osimhen before the end of the first half should be a disturbing development for Eric Chelle ahead of the game against Bafana Bafana on Tuesday.
Osimhen early in the game, found the back of the net, but his effort was correctly ruled out for offside.
Efforts from Moses Simon,who was outstanding in the match, and Alex Iwobi also failed to break a resilient Amavubi side, who gave their all and caused the Super Eagles some anxious moments towards the end of the game.
