Nigeria vs South Africa Odds
| Nigeria Odds | -167 |
| South Africa Odds | +550 |
| Over/Under | 2.5 (+160 / -211) |
| Time | How to Watch | Wednesday, 12 p.m. ET | beIN Sport |
| Odds via BetRivers. For tips on how to watch tennis, click here. | |
Nigeria are one win away from a return to the Africa Cup of Nations final when they take on South Africa.
They have been the most impressive team during the Africa Cup of Nations and now are in a prime position as big favorites to get to the final. Although Nigeria have some of the best attacking players in the world, it's their defense that has gotten them to this point in the tournament.
South Africa are surprisingly into the semifinals after pulling off a stunning upset against Morocco in the round of 16 and outlasting Cape Verde Islands on penalties in the quarterfinals. There has been an internal rise in South African football over the past few years after they missed out on qualifying for the last Africa Cup of Nations, but this is a tall task after playing 120 minutes and having one less day of rest than Nigeria.
Read on for my Nigeria vs South Africa prediction.
Nigeria Preview
Nigeria have been amazing during this tournament and a lot of the credit goes to their manager José Peseiro. What he has done tactically to Nigeria has really allowed them to flourish and play to the strengths of their personnel. He’s switched them to a 3-4-3 or 4-1-4-1 to attack teams transitionally. Nigeria don’t need to have the ball to be successful, in fact they are much better playing very direct through Osimhen and Ademola Lookman through the center with their fullbacks pushing up to create chances via crosses.
What those two formations also do is give Nigeria a simple but effective defensive structure that has been incredibly difficult to play through. Nigeria have allowed only one goal for the entirety of the Africa Cup of Nations and it came in their first match of the group stage against Equatorial Guinea. It's not like they are completely fortunate to have only conceded one goal either. Nobody has created over one expected goal against them and overall for the tournament they have only allowed 2.49 expected goals.
Victor Osimhen has been outstanding as expected leading the tournament with 3.09 expected goals created, but the unsung hero of the Nigeria attack has been Ademola Lookman. Lookman has three of Nigeria's six goals and it's been his ball carrying that has ripped apart opposing defenses. Lookman has created six chances via ball carries, which is double the amount of the next-closest player.
South Africa Preview
South Africa were a bit puzzling coming into the tournament because they were in one of the two groups of three during qualifying, so they just needed to get past Lesotho in order to get here.
Even though they beat Morocco in the round of 16, they were thoroughly dominated, losing on xG 2.0 to 0.30. They were also dominated by Mali in the first match of the group stage, losing 2-0 and only creating 0.6 non-penalty expected goals while allowing Mali to create 2.1 expected goals. They even lost the xG battle against both Tunisia and Cape Verde, so outside of their 4-0 win over Namibia, they haven't been great during this tournament.
South Africa don't have a single player playing in one of Europe's top five leagues, but a lot of their players play for South Africa's most dominant club, Mamelodi Sundowns, made it to the CAF Champions League semifinals this past season. Mamelodi Sundowns are one of the most interesting tactical teams in the world given their positional play and fluidity in their team. The South African National Team adopts a few of those principles under Broos.
However, as this tournament has shown, playing free flowing possession dominant football is great when you are playing teams below you in terms of talent. When you have to play up in competition and you aren't able to hold a lot of the ball or counter-press effectively, you can get ripped apart, which is what I expect to happen to South Africa here.
Nigeria vs South Africa Prediction
It's pretty clear at this point that South Africa's modern tactics don't really work against some of the better teams in Africa. They've been dominated by Mali and Morocco in this tournament so far and Nigeria are about to be an even worse matchup.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if South Africa held a majority of the ball in this match, but even if they do they are incredibly vulnerable on the counter and given the pace and talent Nigeria has running at them, this one could get ugly quickly.
I have Nigeria projected at -431, so I love the value on them on their moneyline at -162.
Pick:Nigeria ML (-162 via BetRivers)
