Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle has said he is sa for his players and Nigerians following their disappointing 1-1 draw with Warriors of Zimbabwe in Group C in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
The Super Eagles once again failed to record a home win in the World Cup qualifiers after the draw with Zimbabwe in Tuesday’s match in Uyo.
Victor Osimhen put the Super Eagles 1-0 ahead on 74 minutes after heading home a cross from Ola Aina.
But in the 90th minute Tawanda Chirewa equalised for Zimbabwe after poor defending by the Super Eagles backline.
After the end of matchday 6 Chelle’s men are still in fourth place on seven points, six points behind leaders South Africa, who defeated Benin Republic 2-0 in Abidjan.
Rwanda occupy second place on eight points, Benin Republic also on eight points are third while Lesotho (six points) and Zimbabwe (four points) are fifth and sixth respectively.
“In the first half we had the chance to score 10 goals, Zimbabwe came to defend, my players were the best on the pitch with possession football and fast attack,” Chelle said in his post-match press conference.
“I’m so disappointed for my players for the country and the way things are now we have to start looking at second place, we deserve to win but this is football.
“I think in the last 10 minutes it was hard for us because we did well in the first half with a lot of intensity so maybe the players were a little tired.
“We tried to score a lot of goals, after our goal I told my players to try to score another goal but like I said maybe they were tired.
“We played a diamond formation and created lots of chances to score goals, this system is tasking and involve lots of energy and this is why we had Ademola on the left and also on the other side.
“After we scored it became difficult for Victor so I made another change and I didn’t want to put a defender and we can say maybe the choice was not good but if we had win we would say the choice was good.”
By James Agberebi in, Uyo
4 Comments
Maybe you will learn now to evolve the team by calling up new players to buff up the team because the team as we know it now is not scoring enough goals – has had this problem for the longest and you should have known that but you can be forgiven for wanting to see what you can get outta the current players in the team, seeing as it’s a new regime and you brought new ideas, but now after 2 games, you should have seen enough to know that you need more and should also have ideas about rectifying the toothlessness in the team along with replacing some personnel – people like Iwobi and Chukwueze etc have no part to play in our team if we want to be a serious, winning team – there are many much better and more deserving players all around the world.
Finally, I said this before and I am repeating it now – I really hope that these useless and corrupt Nigerians in the NFF and the standing status quo haven’t gotten to you – I hope that you are not in cahoots with these scoundrels and are genuinely here to try and help the team while building your own reputation. Chikenna!
Osimhen had so many chances to bury the game at half time but dude was trying useless acrobatics all over the pitch, shooting aimlessly always in a hurry and still this very good osimhen lmao can’t time his run still always in a hurry…..like 3 times he was caught offside)
Especially in the first half I repeat osimhen had so many goal scoring chances to bury that game…
The coach might be pointing fingers towards osimhen with this his comments here but unfortunately he is not brave enough like me to call him out..
Ofcourse the disrespectful lad might go on Instagram to insult him… lmao the coach must of have heard of the finidi story…
Is there light at the end of this qualifying series?
It was always going to be an uphill task to extract maximum 6 points from this round of qualifiers against Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
For me, 4 points and a decent pattern of play from Chelle’s Super Eagles is mildly commendable. Afterall his 2 predecessors could only muster a shameful 3 points from 4 matches in this series.
That said, I have a minor criticism of this coach in the painful 1:1 draw against Zimbabwe.
“I think in the last 10 minutes it was hard for us because we did well in the first half with a lot of intensity so maybe the players were a little tired.” Said Coach Chelle.
Voilà!
The Super Eagles took the fight to Zimbabwe early in the match with a barrage of dangerous chances which eventually bore fruit late with great hold up play from the impressive Arokodare to Aina’s otherworldly cross and Osihmen’s sublime finish from close range to cement his burgeoning reputation as Nigeria’s saviour when all else fails.
The players looked drained to me at that point and I don’t think Coach Chelle did quite enough to adjust their formation in addressing the fatigue that had clearly set in.
That said, well done to the coach and the players. We started the day second to bottom with meagre 3 points. We now have 7 massive points and have moved up a slot on the table.
But, I doubt it will be enough to salvage our fading world cup qualification hopes. And, looking at teams already in the second position play-offs with 10, 12 points, it seems laughable to expect us to even make the intercontinental playoffs.
It’s not looking good all round.
But we take the positives.
Osihmen is undoubtedly a megastar, Arokodare offers something different and the Super Eagles know how to create generous goal scoring openings.
But persistent problems linger.
The team is horrendous in not being able to covert copious goals scoring chances; opposition teams are still able to frustrate the Super Eagles; our defence is porous, chaotic and riddled with error prone centre backs; our defensive midfield infrastructure is dilapidating; and our attacking midfield lacks enough ingenuity; we often struggle to kill off opponents.
If those structural eyesores and personnel problems can be addressed on the pitch, then we should be able to complete this qualification series in a save-face manner even if we fail to qualify for the world cup.