Super Eagles head coach Sunday Oliseh is happy with outcome of the 2018 Fifa World Cup preliminary draw held in St.Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday.
Drawn a bye from the first round of the African qualifiers, Nigeria begins her campaign for a place at the 2018 finals in Russia in November 2015 away to the winner of the Djibouti versus Swaziland first round playoff.
Oliseh said there are a number of reasons for him to be happy with the pairing.
“Of course, I am happy with the draw. We are not playing the first round, which is a preliminary round and which we knew before the draw.
“We will also be playing the first leg of the second round away which means we have an advantage of playing the more crucial return leg at home in front of our fans,” said Oliseh to the NFF official website, www.thenff.com.
Oliseh, however, warned against complacency revealing that there are a lot of dangerous teams around that could hurt if taken for granted.
“Djibouti and Swaziland need to be given the respect that they deserve and either of them that we face in the second round will not be underrated. We respect every team and we will battle anyone that emerges with our full strength.
“With the draw now concluded, we can safely say that the race to Russia has officially started.
“I am optimistic we will run this race very well. We will give it our very best and pray it will be good enough to get us one of the five slots available for Africa,” enthused Oliseh.
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