Nigeria vs Cameroon: Super Eagles seek high flight against Indomitable Lions of Cameroon in Abidjan

The Super Eagles of Nigeria will battle it out with West African neighbours, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon for a place in the last eight of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) as both nations will stand still when they lock horns by 9pm Nigerian time at the Stade Félix Houphouēt-Boigny, Abidjan, Cote'dvoire.

Having garnered seven points from a possible nine in the group stage, José Piseiro's boys booked their place in the Knock Out Stages with relative ease despite scoring just once in all three of their games so far. This is the Super Eagles' 15th straight qualification to the knockout phase in AFCON tournaments they’ve featured at, and they’ll hope to go much further than just the last-16, as Nigeria picked up a medal in 12 of those 14 prior qualifications.

Deserved, half of those medals were the third place bronze, but the most recent of those in 2019 saw them draw none other than Cameroon in the round of 16, with Nigeria running out 3-2 victors in a five-goal thriller. That was the most recent of four straight unbeaten competitive Head-to-Heads against the Indomitable Lions (W3, D1), two of which were wins within regulation time and in an AFCON knockout setting.

Having been third placed finishers in their own 2021 edition, Cameroon are looking to navigate into the last eight for the tenth time across their last 12 AFCON appearances. Despite that respectable record, Cameroon’s traversal of the group stages was anything but graceful. Without a win in their first two matches, it took two goals beyond the 85 minute mark to seal a 3-2 win over Gambia to send them into the knockouts.

That game also continued the sequence of exciting encounters featuring Rogiobert Song's side, with each of their last five international encounter seeing goals at both ends (W1, D3, L1), three of which saw them claw back deficits to avoid defeat. Another regulation time parity would not be a surprise here, though coming from behind may not yield immediate success for the Cameroonians, who have needed penalty shootouts to decide their last two AFCON knockout games (W1, L1).

Players to Watch

Although Nigeria have scored in all three games at this AFCON, African footballer of the year, Victor Osimhen is the only player to have scored from open play for the Eagles so far, with the others coming from an own goal and a goal from the spot. As for Cameroon, Georges-Kevin N'Koudou assisted twice in their final group game and will be looking to bring same energy into this clash.

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The last five encounters between these two have seen Nigeria picked up two victories, Cameroon toppled the Super Eagles once, while both teams have settled for a stalemate on two occasions.