By Emmanuel Okogba

Super Eagles captain, Ahmed Musa has enjoined the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, to allow enough fans attend the crucial second-leg World Cup play-off against Ghana at the MKO Abiola stadium in Abuja to cheer the team to victory.

Nigeria has the advantage of playing away in the first leg as a result of being among the five best five ranked teams in Africa, and will look to either consolidate or overturn whatever result the first-leg produces.

Qualifying for the global showpiece will mean that Nigeria has only missed one tournament (2006) since the 1994 debut and also an opportunity for a good number of members of the current squad who are yet to attend one to get a feel of it.

Ahmed Musa who is Nigeria’s top scorer at senior men FIFA World Cup tournaments with 4 goals will be attending his third and most likely his last. He had earlier hinted this is an interview during the Africa Cup of Nations.

He is not a stranger to scoring goals at the World Cup as he also holds the record of being the only Nigerian player to score more than one goal at different World Cup tournaments. He scored twice against Argentina in 2014 and twice against Iceland in 2018.

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“The FIFA World Cup is the biggest football tournament in the world, and every player wants to feature there.” Musa said during a virtual meeting held on Tuesday night with the Youth and Sports Minister, Sunday Dare and chieftains of the Nigeria Football Federation, Coaches Augustine Eguavoen and Emmanuel Amuneke and the playing body.

“A good number of the players in the team now have not been there, and the few of us that have been there want to experience it again. We just want the NFF to help us get enough fans into the Abuja Stadium for the second leg.

“We will go to Ghana and dig our feet and ensure we get a result. We must admit that Ghana also want to qualify and they have a strong team. The return leg will be crucial and we are ready for the battle, but we want our fans to be in there cheering us on.” He concluded

Nigeria and Ghana have a football rivalry that goes beyond just kicking the ball on the field on play and this will come to the fore on the 23rd and 29th of March.

The fixture is expected to be the most keenly contested of the five fixtures billed to produce Africa’s five representatives at the World Cup finals.

Other fixtures are: Cameroon vs Algeria, Egypt vs Senegal, Mali vs Tunisia, DR Congo vs Morocco.

Vanguard News Nigeria