With the clock ticking and the world cup drawing ever closer, you could be forgiven for wondering if you're really in Nigeria. For this huge country of 150 million soccer fanatics, the usual pre-world cup hysteria with all it's feverish expectation appears at best muted, at worst non-existent.

This unusual ambivalence from the Nigerian Football public stems from the lack of confidence of Nigerians in their team. The team's stolid defensive style of play under the former technical crew led by Ahmodu Shuaibu failed to capture the popular imagination and recent performances during the world cup qualifiers where they were knocked out by a Ghana team made up largely of youth players has left Nigerian's disenchanted and generally dismissive of the country's chances of progressing beyond the first round at the mundial.