Jose Peseiro has blamed fatigue for the Super Eagles’ 1-1 draw with Zimbabwe in their second Group C game of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Rwanda on Sunday.
It was another points dropped for the Eagles who had to settle for a share of the spoils with Zimbabwe.
Walter Musona had given the Warriors the lead in the first half with a superb long range free-kick which flew past Francis Uzoho.
But substitute, Kelechi Iheanacho, equalized for the Eagles off an assist from Moses Simon.
Reacting to the outcome of Sunday’s tie, Peseiro lamented the long trip the team had to undergo to get to the venue of the match.
Also Read: 2026 WCQ: Hold Peseiro Responsible If Super Eagles Fail To Qualify –Dosu
“The trip from Uyo to here (Rwanda), the bus ride, flight, many hours,” he said in his post-match press conference. “So I think the players didn’t get enough rest to play the level expected.
“First half was very bad, second half was much better but we lacked energy to push for a win.”
On whether the absence of some key players contributed to the team’s failure to record a win:“We missed Osimhen, Ndidi, Taiwo, Zaidu, Chukwueze but I think we had enough to beat Zimbabwe.“
The draw means the Eagles occupy second place on two points behind South Africa, who will go four points clear if they beat Rwanda on Tuesday.
44 Comments
Peseiro should be fired immediately. Uzoho should never be allowed to keep or man the goal posts for Nigeria again. A word s enough for the wise. Nigeria may be absent from the next soccer world cup in USA/Mexico/Canada except a miracle happens.
Give the Eagles job to Manu Garba and Emmanuel Amunike. To hell with all these white trash.
All coaches always have excuses before their sack, only a corrupt NFF will continue roller coaster with this stranger that doesn’t know Vincent Enyeama. I hope he doesn’t return to Nigeria again and leave the bones of the national team for us to gather before more excuses rolls in.
Sack the coach now. Everybody shout with me. S A C K, sack the coach now.
This site Engineer according to @selfmade will always give excuses, other big teams winning home and away are not suffering from fatique. Sack him now.
Hahahahaha…ewu gambia. The other time u blamed luck, this time around u blamed fatigue. Very soon you’d run out excuses and then you’d resort to blaming ur ancestors. U are such a very big failure and a misfit for the super eagles. Right from the day u were appointed, we warned anybody that would care to listen that you are a disaster in the making but they never listened. We opined that since the nff had pressed the self destruct button by sacking rohr that a better coach whose cv outshines that of rohr should be employed. The nff bcs of the man’s tendency to harbor corruption hired this failure of a coach and the results are now showing already. Odegbami and co, come out and talk now!!!!! Come out! Bcs, ever since we started experiencing this level or turbulence in out team, u have went silent like a ghost. We want you to start writing ur long episodes of garbage as u used to during the days or rohr. But then, how would u since you are of the beneficiaries of the corrupt largesse that emanates from pessero’s contract. Shameless idiots!!!!! Bastards! All of u idiots would suffer big time. We told u to allow rohr continue if you haven’t found a better replacement but you wicked Idiots were so obsessed with sacking a good man. During the time of rohr, the talk was about how to win the world cup or nations cup bcs he made qualifying for these tournies look so easy and ordinary. He made it look so easy that some idiots felt they could do away with him and still continue in that trajectory. One moron even said that any coach can win the nations cup with rohr’s team, that quallification for these tournies was no big deal. We all know how it ended at the end of the Day. Mr Technical adviser alias board master coach rushed in to occupy and ran away with his tail in btw his legs after being taught a very big lesson. We warned u about the consequences of sacking rohr but caution was thrown into the wind and here we are with heart wrenching results.
@Marvelous sunday, stop disguising yourself. When odegbami was warning you and ur fellow ass-lickers about all this journeymen, didn’t you call him all kinds of name. Was it odegbami that recommended peserio to the NT, last time i checked it was a man named Mourinho. until you all start treating the local coaches like this white men, we will not stop advocating for them. Was Eguavoen selection not better than this 2nd hand coach. If not for the costly error my okoye. Make una pack well. Let your Rorh go perform the same magic for Benin republic.
I have never disguise myself and I won’t. Genuine forumite like monkey post, etc knows me, the way I talk and my stand point in this forum.
Odegbami is inclusive among those to be blamed. He championed the sack of Rohr because he hated that man with passion. Even when that man was easily qualifying us for tournaments, odegbami was busy promoting the 1994 certificateless squad. Was he not the one who recommended and force yobo on Rohr just to under staff the technical bench in terms of quality and experience. Now see the result!!!
In life you can never sow stupidity and reap good result.
oooo please spare us. When did it become a crime for odegbami to voice his opinion. When Rorh was losing games and having team come back to draw with us, what did you expect him to say. The man has advocated for local coaches to handle this team but no when they offered the job, you now give them strict demand which you can give your journey men. Abeg let rorh perform the same wonder with benin republic. abi the magic don quench ni. Am expecting him to go to the world cup with games to spare.
Was Rohr meeting all his targets set for him by the NFF and his contract?
YES OR NO
This coach of ours is a clown.
Odegbami is either in coma, or has became deaf and dumb.
Some people might want to make excuses for him, but they all know the big roll he played in destroying the progress oth the Eagles.
Oh see my people o. Marvelous and dennis it’s been a while. Where have you guys been? Missed you guys…dont mind all these people joor..in life na how you dress your bed na so you go use am take sleep..what you sow that’s what you reap
Rohr is the best coach in Nigeria
@Kenneth, please, kindly ignore them.
Misery loves company.
Was it not their deity Mr. Rohr that gave us Uzoho and Okoye?
It’s time for Manu Garba to be promoted and given the task to build a solid SE. I trust his philosophy and even against the best teams he will compete…. Let us hire a coach with trophy cabinet at international level.
Underage football where you have a lot of time to perfect a team is different from senior level where you have less time to perfect your strategies before games.
Manu Garba has no experience of coaching at senior level.
Can they now see that winning against any team is not a beans. If they had won both matches they will say beating ordinary Lesotho and Zimbabwe and are celebrating. That was what Rohr makes so easy even with the group termed as group of death the man find his way out despite the fact that one of our classy ex international coach ran away then. But when the start sabotaging the man’s effort in other for him to fail by taking the very important matches to grazing reserve pitches, refusal to yield to the man advise even labelled him as talkative by Mr minister etc they start saying they are winning but not playing attractive football. Hope they have got what they wanted now? Truly Nigerians got what they wanted.
Truely my brother. They have gotten what they wanted out of their greed, selfishness and cluelessness. We warned them, but they refuse to listen. Sacking Rohr was a very stupid decision.
”The Professor” has spoken!
Nigerians tend to value or even over value anything of a foreign stock even if that thing is inferior.
We deserve what we are getting.
It’s not badluck now, it’s fatigue, what next, grass is too green.
Keep capping.
Pessedoom needs to be investigated asap.
I won’t be surprised if he is involved in betting. His insistence on Uzohobasket and the manner goals were conceeded in the matches involving these two suggests they might be doing some dirty buz
Sack this technical drawing teacher that is always carrying paper up an down sketching what i dont know
Can we all just just move on from this Rorh wahala already? The old man have not done anything special with Benin republic and peseiro qualify is for upcoming AFCON with game to spare as well plus we are not out of qualification for the WC yet. VO, ndidi,sanusi and chuckzy are core member of his team and they all miss this last two games, I’m confidence we will qualify for the WC and excel at the AFCON if we free this man to do his job, I will advice him to stick with his 424 or 442 bcos it seems we play far better with both system compare to the 433.
Yes Femi,
I think he should stick with his 4-4-2 /4-2-4 but with more methodical build up play. For now he is too direct and the movement of the players is not in sync with the structure of the formation. Which is why strikers are either unbalanced or arrive late to connect with crosses.
One thing is clear, my expectations are now low. I am worried that he may not be savvy enough to make the necessary adjustments to the tactical translation of his formation.
But he did something special with us that made qualification for tournaments look so easy and everybody thought they could handle the team. That is one of his achievements. That is the special thing he did. Do you Now see the difference. We threw away our calculators during rohrs days and now everybody is now thinking of shopping for one again. That is the special thing rohr did for us.
We are not just thinking. As long as world cup qualification is concern, we are using two big calsio calculator. Rohr was special for eagles.
Del Bosque got fired after winning the almighty UCL with RM, Carlo ancelotti is been rumor to leave by end of season after winning it all with the team, now I put it to you, what exactly did Rorh won with the team throughout his reign? He is currently the head coach of Benin that we all watch few days back, did you notice any technical input in there play? Listen I tell u for free that Benin will come almost last by end of the qualifier , pls let’s free that man, coach come and go, we thank him for what he did for us, but he is never the messiah that the team need now.
How many competitions did rohr go to? 2. One nations cup semi final after missing two consecutive AFCON. Qualified us for the world Cup where we finished 3rd in our group. You had an NFF that will take matches to shabby stadium,owe the coach, force players on him and you expect a miracle. Afterall, you all wanted to avoid a disaster. How’s that working out so far?
How can he be doing wonder with Benin when he is not a magicians. Can you compare Benin with Nigerian in term of football? See I’m not talking about any coach being good neither I’m i defending rohr sack of course he can never be Nigeria coach forever but the manner with which he was treated despite his team not doing too badly then. Isn’t what he mades look very easy you guys are wailing and gnashing on now? Progressive people like us told you then that Nigeria were just lucky to have him and giving us that kind of results not that we have a very spetacular team but you wouldn’t listen. Even if you bring Guardiola to come and coach us the result might not be better.As for him not doing well with Benin currently, I don’t think he has lost to a team that his team not suppose to lose to. Remember he lost to South African in Durban. You think if our current team play south Africa as it is now the result would have been different? Even Herve Renard you guys have been shouting hasn’t done well with most of the teams he has coached since he left Ivory coast. Honestly I’m not complaining about Pesseiro being good or not.
Leave peserio alone. He only has 3 competitive fixtures to go. In the group stage of AFCON. Sacking him now will make him talk like Rohr “if only I handled the team at that tournament, I would have won it”.
Heaven knows and I know his team will not make it to second round, that is neither top two finish or best third place.
So let us let him end his reign in ignominy. We have another afcon in 2025. We can be more prepared for that.
Nija no go carry last…lol
Greetings from Accra, Ghana
Well what can I say? Peseiro has been serially unable to put his results where his mouth is.
He boldly flaunts his belief in being able to raise a formidable squad to take the continent by storm. He talks with the bravado of a coach that can hit the ground running. But there appears to be a huge gulf between his rhetorics and his abilities.
That said, I don’t think it has been all that bad. Peseiro qualfied Nigeria for the Afcon with a game to spare and his Super Eagles are undefeated in World Cup qualifiers after two games.
But painful facts hide the naked reality.
Facts: Nigeria struggled through Afcon qualifiers, we are painfully poor in friendlies and 4 massive points are dropped in world cup qualifiers.
We arrive the battle ground with guns that have no ammo.
Against Zimbabwe, again, Nigeria went behind, created copious goal scoring possibilities and ultimately limped to a poor 1:1 draw.
How can one begin to defend Peseiro?
So far he is proving to be an average coach. I am not sure if sacking him is the solution. The Super Eagles are poor but not abject – trust me things can be far worse.
Let me end this way: if thr NFF retains Peseiro, then I recommend the following:
– He augments his midfield.
– He gets a reliable goalkeeper (although I don’t blame Uzoho for today’s goal as the freekick was awesome)
– He selects the right players.
– He adopts counter-attacking football rather than all-out-attack.
Peseiro plays a “bullying” brand of football with an arrogance of wanting to score bags of goals. But minnows like Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Burkina Faso have proven that the Super Eagles’ arrogance is a misplaced delusion.
So, if Peseiro ‘humbles’ himself and builds up more slowly and methodically, he could succeed and even score more goals and concede less.
This is not a reliable Coach he is corrupt and disrespectful to this Country. Listen to what he said about Our National Icon Former SE Capt and Afcon winner Vincent Enyeama. Will he try that with Senegal or Morocco??? NFF has no value that is why they hire average coaches like this with disgusting loosing streak at all stretch.
Going forward no automatic call up for unserious players. If you are not ready to give your best stay clear of the team. This is where we miss osihmen.
No question about the quality of the goal. It was a tremendous free kick that would have beaten many quality goalkeepers. But Uzoho should not have been anywhere near that post. His confidence is shot .
As far Mr. Peseiro, while some adoringly call him “The Professor,” I call him a fox in a henhouse.
Perhaps Professor Fox. 🙂
@ Deo, yes.
He is going to milk The NFF for every cent he can get, while selling hope and Nations Cup trophy.
This is where NFF ONIGBESE have landed us. The lion share of all blame is on them.
After the Lesotho game, I rushed to go and buy calculator.
I’m glad I have already bought mine, because with this result, calculator prices have more than doubled.
Na to dey press calculator na em we dey now. Permutation and combination. Let me go and look for my old maths and statistics text books!
Ceasefire guys, ceasefire. Rohr era is gone and gone for good.No amount of thetorics will bring that era back.
Now to Paserio, from day one, the NFF did not hire the best coach that they interviewed.He came fourth.They hired the cheapest and the one they can do business with.The one that they can pad his salary and have their share paid into a proxy account abroad.That can never happen with a truly world class coach.
The question I would have loved to ask Amaju Pinick is that, were the super eagles his company, would he hire Paserio as the MD? The $40k yanked off from his salary was their share.
The man is lazy and have no balls.How come none of the last under 20 players was not deemed worthy of a place in the team, particularly in midfield.? Senegal gave debuts to about 3 players from their under 20 teams over the weekend.
The way forward is to either hire a truly world class coach to rebuild the team or call in Manu Garba to tinker the team as majority of the boys played under him either at the under 17 or 20 and the NFF should truly support him.Something surgical must be done before the next match.
words out is that he has agree personal terms with Zamalek of Egypt.Let him go.
Now we know Nff has never hired a competent coach since the time of Westerhof and Phillipe . It is the players that are making the coach look tactical and once the center can not hold again the players begin to expose the incompetent in tactics of the coach. I told people that the moment Obi and Moses left eagles Rohr’s weakness began to reveal itself, the moment Ndindi and Osi don’t play for eagles Peseiro shows his foolishness to the world. Don’t let us blame the players in fact we should be grateful to them , it is their individual excellence that has been covering the mess of NFF and The Coach .
I wont suggest a local coach to handle Eagles Nigeria is too tribalistic and our local coaches are lazy intelligently and wont enjoy the respect of our players and officials of NFF.
Look for Herve Renard with immediate effect. He is not that expensive to manage yet he is hardworking and sound technically. Besides he knows African football and mentality very well. We need a coach that knows African football very well . All attacking football doesn’t work in African unlike in Europe where teams are eager to score each other in Africa teams will pack players at the back , and wait patiently to counter you.
We need top government intervention to keep this NFF officials on their toes , it’s like they are too free to do and undo. Nobody is checking their excesses .
One thing is sure South Africa can not win all their away matches and wea re going to solicit for brotherly love from Benin to beat them for us . Month of march is a long way to get our asses together .
We should begin to invite players that are fighters not only skillful. Bassey is not eagles material o also is Iwobi the way both players control the ball frightens me. Ademola lookman is bloody selfish and not committed, the guy is a sadist . Taiwo plays as if he is pregnant . Francis the tank doesn’t have any location in the field. Tella game seems business like and he crosses well , but unfortunately we couldn’t see him well because the team is not coordinated. Omerou and Awaziem should be tried at the center back. They both have experience to contain African players. Cyril should be tested so also Orban and Akor and Alssan Yusuf.. A new keeper is needed more life. Despite the cry of fans and the whole world that Isoro known as unhook is not a good keeper Peseiro kept faith in him this is the highest level of disrespect shown by the coach and it confirms insinuation that Peseiro is a corrupt coach.
GERNOT ROHR WAS FAR BETTER THAN THIS COACH. THEY HARDLY SCORE GOAL SINCE HE TOOK OVER AND ALSO CONCEDE GOALS ALWAYS. SACK THIS COACH NOW
We are already gonna be trailing by 4 points after this window.
Bring in local coaches now (especially these their overrated 94 squad guys), the excuse will be that they came in 1 month to AFCON and after matchday 2 of the WCQ, for assignments, they were still gonna bungle in the first place (like that have been doing in recent past)…..LMAoooo.
Matchday 2 and we are already hoping for Lesotho to beat ManCity and Los Angeles Lakers to play a draw with Enyimba……LMAOoo
Segun odegbami,omo9ja and that clown called jimmyball,I want to ask,qualifying for tournaments with games to spare isn’t still a bog deal right? Where’s all the “Mr total football? Mr no nonsense? Let us fail with our own? Any coach can achieve great results with this squad except rohr. The next fifa ranking will shock us all.
This coach of ours is a clown.
Odegbami is either in coma, or has became deaf and dumb.
Some people might want to make excuses for him, but they all know the big roll he played in destroying the progress oth the Eagles.