Nigeria – Ghana 1 @ 2,20 Tipico
Teams played 17 times against eachother with 5-7-5.
At first sight looks like it will be a duel between two equipollent teams, but a short view over matches played in recent years (after 2000), shows that nigeria won 4 of 5 meetings.
Nigeria will be without captain Jay-Jay Okocha, don´t see it as big blow, cause jay jay wasn´t in great shape over last months. John Mikel Obi is expected to play his role, and i´m confident, he´ll make a good job. Joseph Yobo and Nwankwo Kanu have recovered from their knocks and are likely to play in Monday's game, Kanu starting on the subs' bench.
Obafemi Martins, the Inter Milan striker has the power and guile to break down any defence in addition to having the ability to create goals from nowhere, and score them from anywhere. Hope he will be more effective in ANC then in italy, where he needs to much scoring chances to hit.
Ghana has been decimated by injuries to Michael Essien, Sulley Muntari and Asamoah Gyan. Stephen Appiah plays despite only training for two days, after playing friday for fenerbahce in turkey Championship.
Due to much better form of Nigeria and important absences and tiredness of Appiah weakened Ghana, I expect Win for Nigeria in their first match.
Jep [[yo]]