The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has set the World Cup semi-final target for Super Eagles and the other four teams representing the continent at the summer World cup in Brazil.
Aside Eagles, the other African representatives are Ghana, Cameroon, Cote d’ Ivoire and Algeria.
Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana are the only African teams to have reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Cameroon achieved the feat at Italic 90, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana at the 2010 edition in South Africa.
But CAF President, Issa Hayatou, believes that time has come for an African teams to break the quarter-final.
Consequently he nudged African teams heading for the World Cup in Brazil to strive to reach the last four.
But Hayatou said a last-four berth at the June 12 to July 13 event by any of the Africa’s flagbearers in Brazil would be an icing on the cake.
He said this would be for the successes African football has recorded, especially in the past 26 years of CAF.
“What will make me happy now, after all these achievements, will be to get even more successes for African football,’’ CAF’s media outlet quoted Hayatou to have said.
“We continue with massive strides on all fronts of football development and, going into the World Cup, I do not see why Africa cannot have one or two of our representatives reach the semi-finals or indeed even the final of the World Cup during my time as President.’’
But former Super Eagles goalkeeper trainer, Joe Erico, on Tuesday said the Super Eagles could reach the semi-finals of the World Cup if the team “is properly restructured” by Coach Stephen Keshi.
Erico told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that it was important to restructure the team to enable it perform maximally.
“In every team, it calls for regular restructuring. You restructure and restructure until when the game has finally kicked off.
“So, I am sure we have a team already. Probably, he would be looking forward to having a backup team to give that team a solid foundation.
“Going by their present standard, I think they would go pretty far. They’ll get to the semis, probably, but they’ve got to work really hard to get there.