Former captain and coach of the Super Eagles, Austin Eguavoen has said the 30th edition of the Africa Nations Cup which started in Gabon yesterday will not be exciting without the Nigerian team which suffered a consecutive absence from the biennial soccer showpiece.

Speaking in an interview with footballlive.ng, the 1994 Afcon winner refrained from describing qualification for the continental tournament as Nigeria’s birth right, however, maintaining that the 2017 Afcon like others Nigeria has missed out on, simply lacked much spark.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s 2018 World Cup opponent, Algeria are expected to tackle Zimbabwe in the first match of today as Tunisia and Senegal take on each other thereafter.