Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions’ coach, Hugo Broos, is not losing any sleep over how his team will upstage the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the Russia 2018 World Cup race, but promised to give Nigeria a good fight for her money in the qualifying series.
Broos, who is basking in the euphoria of the Africa Cup of Nations’ victory in Gabon early this month, said heaven will not fall if Cameroon fails to qualify for the greatest global event in Russia.
Nigeria is leading group B of the African qualifiers with six points, ahead of the African champions, who could only pick two points from two games. The Belgian strategist said he was not afraid of anything that could prevent his team from qualifying for the World Cup, as he is building a relatively new generation of young players for future competitions.
Broos, however, believed that he is fighting in a difficult group, which also has Zambia and Algeria. “I have a relatively young squad, and I will keep trying new players.
Therefore, if Cameroon does not qualify for the 2018 World Cup, it will not be a disaster. We’re going to do everything we can to get there, but in our group, Nigeria is four points ahead of us.
We will face this team twice in late August and early September. It will take at least four weeks before hosting Algeria in October. But we have to leave a little time to this team, who will have to digest this title,” Broos said.
The tactician said that nobody gave his team the opportunity to excel in Gabon, but he was able to prove his critics wrong at the end. “My goal was to reach the quarter-finals. Some said we would not go through the first round.
I think something happened during our quarterfinal match against Senegal, one of the favourites (0- 0, 5-4 on penalties). We suffered, but we managed to qualify. And from that moment, we started to believe in the title,” he said.
He described his team as a bunch of individuals with an exemplary mentality and players with never-say-die attitude. He said Nigeria should be ready for war, as his boys will never give up the struggle until the end of the hostilities.
Nigeria is not also sitting pretty on the proposed World Cup matches, as the country’s football authorities had approved series of friendly games for the national team.
The Super Eagles are billed to play Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire as from next month, to keep in shape for the all-important engagements with the Indomitable Lions in August and September.
