Super Eagles head coach, Finidi George claimed his side paid for their poor defending and loss of concentration against Benin Republic.
Nigeria lost the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier 2-1 and now face the prospect of missing out on a place at the mundial.
Poor clearance by Calvin Bassey led to Benin Republic’s equalising goal scored by Jordel Dossou.
The Super Eagles also failed to clear their lines following a corner kick allowing Steve Mounie to score the winning goal just before the break.
“We scored a good goal and after that we lost concentration, they got their equaliser and then they got their momentum,” Finidi said during his interaction with media after the game.
Read Also:2026 WCQ: Rohr Relishes Cheetahs’ Win Over Former Team Super Eagles
“We didn’t defend well the long kick from the goalkeeper and they got their first goal.
“We had control of the game, but we didn’t defend well.
“If you don’t take your chances and don’t defend well in a World Cup qualifier, you pay for it.
“First half was good but for the goals (we conceded), while in the second half we pushed and defended well.”
The Super Eagles will resume the World Cup qualifiers in March 2025 with a trip to Rwanda before a home game against bottom team Zimbabwe.
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This dude cannot be allowed to continue but those dumbass Nigerians will never see common sense even if it hits then head on at 100 miles an hour – even after they wake up again in the hospital, they’ll still be lying and continue stealing and allowing this dumbass bald head mugu to continue so that they too can continue – have you ever seen a thief who will voluntarily pour sand into his own gari before? common sense in no longer common abeg.
How can a guy who has clearly lost any respect the players could have ever had for him be allowed to continue leading those players?
Have you people ever heard the phrase “a manager has lost the dressing room”.
Well Finidi the clueless has clearly completely lost the dressing room – he is completely clueless and tactically bereft and has gone from causing a rift between him and the best players available to us at this time, his actions have made Tella dishonour his country’s call and who would blame him? Who wants to play for a clueless bald headed myopic “coach” like Finidi the zero ball specialist lol.
He has blamed and called the integrity of his players into question, saying now that the defense is poor, he has alienated the other players by selecting nonentities ahead of them – Onuachu, Iheanacho, Iwobi, sodiq etc etc lool – I mean even though every tom and dick is having a go at tanimu because he plays in zimbabwe abi where is he playing self? what you all need to understand is that it’s not about where a person plays at, it is about that players proficiency and for me, tanimu has actually been good!, he is coming like a revelation and a very good find.
So it’s not about where you play but look, some Nigerians are among the most unintelligent people walking the face of the planet, many are not far removed from “the early man” aka the “missing link” teehehe, so what would you expect of such human beings ehn? Go and ask yourself.
Mehn I really ain’t got the time for this ****!
We’ll all thank you later. Pomo lips.
Mehn, you sure are a real skankaziod! lool
That 1 brain cell of yours has completely packed up die to overuse abi? – you’re struggling to move past that one line you stole from man dem like 2 years ago and now you’re looking like the retarded broken record that back door warriors like you normally are hehehe – ah sorry for your loss o, shongbo? F*****g amoeba lool.
Oya smile for the camera plank teehehehe!
General Pangolo. Go hug a wet transformer. Frog.
Tell your father and mother to go hug wet transformer and you face firing death squad!
filthy dog
In 2000 I was at the stadium Nigeria vs Senegal. Senegal scored first . The rest his history. Compare and contrast
The game Benin republic yesterday and eagles of today . I thought it was because of the clone food eaten now .that affect the boys .in those days a president wil ask them to lined up and get 10 stroke of cane
But went i watched the Ghana/ CAR game yesterday night . I now know that Nigeria has lost his momentum in senior competition. Home and away .
In those days eagles wil fight to get the goals . No matter wat the other team is coming on with.
Well it is not over yet . But but look for boys in teams you can camp for two weeks. In December. Not this ones that club wil not release two days to a game.
They need special camp . December 19 to January 3 before going back to Europe. I no clubs in premier league will not release their players so look for guy in lower league in Europe, mix with local league club guys in Nigeria.
Take Dem to France camp .or morroco. Instead of dem going to religion çamp in December to pray .camp Dem two weeks . And in March call three guys playing regularly in top league. Camp for a week .camp in Cote D’Ivoire.and from there go and win ur games .
The white witch doctor did this to qualify for France 98 .
He never camped in Nigeria.
And the rest his history. Remember he was sent packing because dey said he can’t play Nigerian style.
But he came back with Japan to win silver in Nigeria 99 and he stil went to 2002 with Japan to get to round of 16.
Obviously, Finidi needs a B team. We can’t keep relying on this foreign bred that have no heart
Is Finidi planning to continue as SE coach? Ahhhh
Let us put our emotions aside and analyze this two matches properly, from my own point of view our super eagles didn’t perform badly in both matches especially the yesterday game. Nff should allow him to continue. The result is bad but the performance deserves more than the result we got yesterday.
Okay o osareodeon osarheghenobo abi how you spell that your last name self, you have now decided to choose another easy name to spout your sponsored nonsense here ba? Na Ken you be now abi oh sorry o, I mean Kelvin ehn? Okay o – dey play! lool!
Sharrap, General Pawpaw. Old soldier never die.
Look at this copycat idiot! You are too stupid to have any original material of your own and are always stealing my leftovers – you are a dumbass illiterate and not worth my spit! – absolute last man – friggin batty man!
And you keep going on about an “an old soldier” I can guarantee you and anyone else bold enough to stake their life on it that you are definitely a lot older than me – what is your age? Old retarded demented sinful gay dog!
Don’t get me started on your case fool! Stay in your bent and depraved lane before I wipe the floor with your bastard ass! Olosi oloriburuku! Hell bound battyman!
Toilet is better than you, General Pit Latrine. Go and drink gutter water.
CSN BETTER WATCH YOURSELVES!!
DON’T ******* REMOVE MY REPLY TO THIS BASTARD AND LEAVE HIS INFURIATING TROLLING ON VIEW!!
USE YOU COMMON SENSE IF YOU HAVE ANY AND UNDERSTAND WHY THE BASTARDS COMMENT MADE ME SO ANGRY!!
DON’T YOU DARE REMOVE MY COMMENT AGAIN IF YOU HAVE ANY INTEGRITY IN YOUR LIVES – WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE INDIVIDUALY – APPLY COMMON SENSE IF YOUR’E GOING TO INTERVENE!!
Daft Dummy Dumbo Finishi is blaming the players that he independently selected and openly defended when it was obvious his player selection was discrinatory and highly skewed to favor the ones that are not deserving.
You left Ekong, Balogun, Ogbu, and Osho and selected unserious Awaziem, untested Taminu, and two home based defender..
You were with Pesseiro when he was finding it hard to win some matches, you saw how Pesseiro solved the problem using the right tactics and players to take the team to its best performance and highest ranking in a decade. Pesseiro coached top teams before he got hired and knew that the defence was the main pain point. He brought out the best in Onyeka and others.. I believe if Pesseiro was left to continue he would have fixed the attack because he knew Osu, Awo, and Boni are the top 3 in that order..
He knew Ndidi, Chukwueze,Senior bench man, Dongo are not reliable..
Now, the delusional sport minister and the 99 thieves in glass house are chasing shadows..
Where is the $4 million dollars received this year, how come you can’t hire a moderate ambitious foreign coach and get intelligent and ambitious Olofin who was prolly the only engineering graduate that played for the national team with a top coaching certificate to support the foreign coach..
Besides, Cerezo has overstayed his relevance in that technical position..
The whole nff should be overhauled to remove the fingerprints of saboteur picnic from the system.
Yesterday, Super Eagles coach, Finidi George, proved me right with the poor performance of the Super Eagles against Benin Republic in Abidjan.
Even though I knew he could not deliver on this assignment I had prayed for him to prove me wrong so that the Super Eagles could qualify.
A coach like Finidi shouldn’t have experimented his low capacity with the senior national team. He should have started with any of the country’s age grade teams as a builder instead of leading the Eagles where some of the players are at the peak of their career.
Nine African teams will be going to the next world cup and it’s unfortunate that Nigeria may not be part of them. We are not ready, we are still building a team and recording positives.
As a matter of fact, some of the players he paraded yesterday would have lost form in another four years. A coach like Finidi has no capacity for a rescue mission that Nigeria needed after the exit of Jose Peseiro.
Except that the job of Finidi is to build a new generation of players, he has no business in coaching these present crop of players because he lacks the capacity to quickly blend them together for world cup qualification.
He has shown in less than a week that he cannot read match and has not got the tactical ability to control a game. His players, despite their quality played aimlessly with no formation, wrong passes from back to front. They also lost ball easily. Too bad to see Nigeria display such a kindergarten skills on the pitch yesterday.
On Monday, Super Eagles scored first against the Beninese but could not build on the spike after Gernot Rohr, the Benin coach quickly changed his own tactics.
Rohr noticed that the Eagles defence was not coordinated, he instructed his boys to throw the ball into the Eagles box, which resulted into two quick goals.
I have asked who is Benjamin Tanimu in our defence? Where is he playing and where had he played. Surprisingly, the guy plays in Tanzania, one of the lowest league in Africa after he left Bendel Insurance.
He may be a talented player, fine, he does not understand the chemistry that made the solid defence of the Super Eagles we saw at the last AFCON where Peseiro paraded William Troost-Ekong, Ola Aina, Kenneth Omeruo and Chigozie Awaziem.
Before the two matches that Finidi prosecuted, Ekong said he was available but he was never invited. I have not read anywhere that Aina is injured. And for Omeruo and Awaziem whom Finidi invited, the two sat on bench. He left those who knew the chemistry out of the match to experiment a new defence line and Nigeria really suffered for it.
The Beninese team did not create any good chance at all. The chances fell on them because there was no chemistry in our defence and they used it to nail the Super Eagles.
Having noticed Rohr’s idea, I had expected Finidi to also change tactics but our man became a spectator, substituting and deforming his earlier formation.
If the job of Finidi is to build a team, then we should forget about world cup and African Cup of Nation for now and let him continue to test all the players until we will get a good team, perhaps in five years but if it’s about qualification, Finidi should be booted out now.
Yesterday’s match was irritating. The players are overrated. The manager is a rookie. We played against a bad Benin team, yet they beat us.
Terrible, terrible, terrible
Well, I just finished having an analysis of the video clip and really, Bassey is the culprit of the equalizer. Clearly, I’m not happy over the result. Regardless, my take is that instead of crying over spilt milk, because this one don pass, we should be more concerned on the remaining matches and besides all that, the Minister of sports, Hon. Enoh must he reminded that Ciach George Finidi is less than a month on the job and would need more time to prepare winning team. That’s the point… There was nothing really bad about the match judging from the coach selection, yes, fine, we lost the match but were the cheetahs there to add to the numbers? Capital no! Sincerely, I’m against this fire brigade approach being employed by the Honourable Minister. Hon. Enoh must be wise enough because it took foreign managers many years to raise a good team and if my memory wouldn’t fail me, it was only Coach Westerhof that won an Afcon gold gaving spent more than 4 years. Finidi should be given 4 years and be allowed to raise a team we would be proud of.
Oga shebi you nor won hear word?.. How many time must I call your Long name?.. Tell me what are they building did we tell them we needed them to break and rebuild what was already built?.. did we?.. Listen Hear Mr Man we want Finidi gone, It is our Golden Generation and NFF and wHoever Else had better not play with this team. Employ a foreign tactitian a Very Good one in the Level of Herve Reynard Moreoverhis contract expires Month End June. We need Herve Reynard, Give him free hand to select our best European Legs and Possibly Add to the Dual with the likes of Adarabioyo and Olise (Herve is French *Wink* Wink*) and let hime do his thing. Let the Honourable Minister and Co focus on NPFL, CHAN and find out how one day we can get our league to the point where the likes of Lookman Osimhen, and Co will like to come and wind down their careeers here, Finished all this your Rubbish Rebuild talk is forgery!
Kindly excuse the typos for I’m in transit but clearly, im understood. Meanwhile, it’s either you’re too sentimental or simply a daft not to understand that Coach George is only a few weeks on the job and that shouldn’t be enough for this outcry. I already told everyone here that I’m not happy over the outcome of the match but does that stops me from saying the fact? Your guess! See, the Honourable Minister, Enoh is well abreast of work ethics, timeframe in relation to task, target and the degree of freedom in exercising certain obligations at that time a contract is penned. You’re indeed a daft not to realize that George, the NFF and to a large extent, the Minister of sport entered into certain agreement which preludes contract signing. The QED or where it will all boil down to is that as true SE fans, we should be calling on the relevant agencies to grant the SE coach more time.
@Odion, abi o. I was wondering what with these dot national online making noise even on phoenix. Hehehe. Finito only two weeks as coach and those who love Nigeria more than Nigerians wants him sacked.Hmmm
God bless you for this. When it comes to our own, thats when the fire brigade approach is being used, because his contract is not like that of the white coaches. Well i just hope he can see that over reliant on over-rated players need to end. You clearly need hungry players in this team.
@Hahahahahahaha look at this Ghanain Operative forming to Be a Nigerian to destroy our ball @Kenneth abi?… Even you devilish wish will not come to pass you and that @Oseodion man above forming to be NFF operative. The greedy shall have thier Judgement day. @Kenneth you think your Devious ways will prevail no shakes it is well. God Know’s best
FOR THOSE SAYING THAT FIDIHE GEORGE NEEDS MORE TIME AS A COACH. FINE. LET HIM START WITH EYINMBA FOOTBALL CLUB. RADARADA.
Who do not know in this country that Bassey and Ajayi cannot pair together in the defence,Rohr use the best defence Nigeria still have till today oyibo wall when pesero came he thought Nigeria have quality players and decided to drop Balogun and ekong , we all know the result he got till after the first match in AFCON as a good thinking man , he retrace to 3.5.3 formation which becomes a saving grace.onyeka was our best in AFCON that also shield that defence, but he was kept in the bench iwobiI is an uncommitted player, bashiru is the best attacking midfield we have for now but kept on bench, ndidi always made a lot of mistake,that affects our defence, I was so happy when he is not available for AFCON, truly Findi Plays name instead of quality, really the guy do not have answer to Nigeria problem, and the truth is that every football fan in Nigeria believe Nigeria have the best players in the world because Nigeria have few stickers that are doing well in Europe when you don’t have quality midfielders that can pass the ball and quality defenders that can secure the goal we get, that’s why fans attacks the good coach we had and make sure they are sacked, not knowing that Nigeria team is an empty gallon that makes the loudest noise, it will only take a quick thinking coach to get result for nigeria.restore with immediate effect Balogun and ekong, Aina with zaidu, then Onyeka in DM. Let’s see if we will not qualify for world cup
God bless you for this. When it comes to our own, thats when the fire brigade approach is being used, because his contract is not like that of the white coaches. Well i just hope he can see that over reliant on over-rated players need to end. You clearly need hungry players in this team.
Many people are starting to see why some of us were screaming “NO!” at the appointment of this guy from the get-go. And it’s for good reason.
After drawing the first three matches—which, let’s be honest, felt like losses—the Super Eagles’ chances immediately entered the ICU. You don’t call in an untested, inexperienced sailor to save a sinking ship! You need a seasoned captain with maturity and experience, not some confused, overly ambitious rookie. How on earth did the NFF think it was a good idea to hand over a struggling Super Eagles team to Finidi George, a coach with zero international experience, who hasn’t even handled a national team before? We can all see his naivety and immaturity, not only in his selections but in his tactics and line-ups.
Let’s talk about his selections: Taminu, who plays in Tanzania, suddenly became a better choice than battle-tested warriors like Ekong, Balogun, and even Igho Ogbu. Onuachu suddenly became a starter while Awoniyi was discarded like yesterday’s leftovers. Aina and other reliable players? Completely sidelined.
On the tactical front, Finidi seems to think we should start playing tiki-taka, forgetting that Peseiro wasn’t stupid for trying to shore things up at the back. It’s like trying to teach a hippo ballet—it’s just not going to work!
Gusau has signed up for failure, and this is yet another manifestation of it. But as long as they continue to disgrace us with their blatant corruption and nepotism, they shouldn’t expect providence to smile on them. It’s like they’re auditioning for a comedy show, except no one’s laughing.
This animal still talking, finidi and his supporters needs serious beat down, we’ve some them here in this forum. The smelly ogogoro drinker knows he lacks the technicality and the knowledge to coach the super eagles, still he fought for the job to sabotage us. We must not allow him to escape, beating him or burning down is house will send a clear message to other lazy local incompetent local coaches to stay in their lane.
He is blaming our defenders.
Is it not this same SE that had one of the best defence in the just concluded AFCON? Our captain, a defender, was even awarded the MVP of the tournament! You left our best defender at home, and went into the game with your Tanzanian guy. Now you are complaining. Why didn’t your Taminu (or whatever is his name) bail you out?