Former Nigeria star Emmanuel Amuneke believes the five African flagbearers will have their work cut out for them at next month's 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Africa will be represented by Morocco, Cameroon, Tunisia, Senegal and Ghana, who beat Nigeria in the final qualifying round, denying the Super Eagles a fifth successive appearance.
The Super Eagles' outstanding performance at USA'94 and Algeria's inspired performance at the 1982 finals in Spain stand out among the few and far between African football miracles at the World Cup.
The only African teams to have advanced to the quarterfinals are the trio of Cameroon (Italia 1990), Senegal (Korea/Japan 2002), and Ghana (South Africa 2010).
“It is unfortunate that Nigeria will not be at the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup,” Amuneke who scored twice for the Super Eagles against Bulgaria and Italy at USA’94 told NationSport.
“But the five countries representing Africa at Qatar 2022 must, first of all, learn from the previous World Cups, especially at the last Russia 2018 where no team from the continent reached the second round stage.
“I think this is very, very important because we have great players playing in various leagues in Europe and we can see that we have great players all over the place, especially with Senegal’s Sadio Mane coming second behind Karim Benzema this year’s Ballon d'Or