Tunde Sulaiman
30 November 2011
Nigeria’s dreams of making it to next summer’s Olympic football tournament is now hanging by a thread after the Dream Team lost 2-1 to Senegal Tuesday night.
The defeat, the team’s second after losing to hosts Morocco 1-0 on Saturday, leaves Nigeria bottom of Group A and needing almost a miracle to progress.
Despite all the pre-match talk from both the technical crew and players that they were up to the task, the team again fell flat although they did play better than they did against Morocco.
With both sides losing their opening matches, Senegal struck twice in the first half to re-launch their London 2012 dreams.
Nigeria pulled one back early in the second half but was just unable to find the second goal which would have salvaged a point in a 2-2 draw.
As things stand, Nigeria no longer has its fate in its hands as even a decent win over Algeria on Friday will not guarantee them a London 2012 ticket, since a draw between already qualified Morocco and Senegal will see both teams progressing to the semi-finals.
The latest set back only how far Nigerian football has fallen in recent time, culminating in the failure of the Super Eagles to qualify for next year’s African Cup of Nations.
In the early kick off, Morocco made it two wins out of two after a 1-0 win over Algeria.
Adnane Tighadouini, who came on as a substitute early in the second half, got the only goal of the game when he fired home from the edge of the area in the 57th minute.
The top three teams in this tournament are automatically through to the Olympics while the side which loses the 3rd/4th place game will go to a play-off with an Asian team.
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