Former Nigerian goalkeeper, Idah Peterside says the inability of the interim coach of the Super Eagles, Austine Eguavoen to change tactics contributed to the team’s elimination from the ongoing 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Recall that Tunisia shocked the Super Eagles to set up an AFCON last-eight showdown after Youssef Msakni scored two minutes into the second half to give the previously unimpressive North Africans a second-round triumph over 10-man Nigeria.
Nigerians’ hopes of equalising were dealt a huge blow midway through the second half when Alex Iwobi, initially yellow-carded for a stamp on Msakni, was sent off after the referee checked the VAR monitor.
However, Peterside, who spoke on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast programme Sunrise Daily, listed some of such irregularities to include lack of planning, failure to switch tactics, and unnecessary promises for the players, among others.
“We should have won that game,” he said in reaction to Nigeria’s defeat to Tunisia on Sunday night at the Stade Roumde Adjia in Garoua, Cameroon. “We were on the better side. We didn’t do what we should have done at the beginning of the game.
“They gave us so much rest and we should have utilised that opportunity. The game was a little bit slow. Tunisia players tried to slow it down; they knew we were quicker and better. We should have gotten that first goal and things would have changed.
Tactically, they were superior. They knew what they wanted to do. They slowed down the game and frustrated us. They knew our strength was from the left.”
“This is where the assistant comes in. When you watch the English Premier League, you will see the assistant coach once in a while come to whisper something to the coach. We didn’t see that happen too many times yesterday. You need to change tactics,”
Peterside added.
“In our mind, we all felt this was a foregone conclusion. We were already calling ourselves champions when we had not qualified. News filtered that some officials – not football coaches – were going to the dressing room to address the players.
“There’s a psychology of football. A footballer has to think about the match 100%. This is football, don’t promise them,” Peterside stated.
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Rohr warned ‘’no easy way out ‘’ We wanted to bamboos them. We threw caution in to the wind instead of a cautious approach and attacking sporadically. The results is what it is. I hope we have lean’t our lesson. There are no easy way out. I will rather advise we get a good coach or our football start going down. Football is results oriented. It may not look beautiful but once you get the results, you are good to go. Imagine if we had played a better team than Tunisia?
Pls which better team we would’veplayed in this tournament than this vibrant Super Eagle? The simple truth is it wasn’t our day period let’s stop all this blame games and put this wonderful squad we have together with more little additions in the team they can make us proud in la cote irvore 2023. We don’t have time for any Alien Couches coming here for experiments because the next in crucial match in on the way in next 30 days home and away fixtures against Ghana.This Team has the energy to hold their own any day with any team if NFF will allow Aguavone to finish this world cup qualifiers for us.
One wonders how changing a pattern of play in a crucial knockout stage matches will work even when we are minus one man on pitch? Nigerians pls think and be reasonable in our analysis particularly our ex footballers hhhhhmm. No pattern of play works in minus one man matches even when you play above yourselves the end result is always loss especially in knockout matches except home and away fixtures period. Again the type of officiating am seeing in this AFCON is so worrisome that one wonders if there’s a ground plan to ease out certain teams of this tournament in other archive certain targets because this same Referee was in the centre of controversy with Ghana match against South Africa and his calls in our matche yesterday was so troubling especially that straight Red Card incident on Iwobi.
So people let’s calm down and encourage our boys because by now i know they have learnt there lessons from this matches so let’s move on it’s going to get better with this team being together. Peace
@kd10 We lost because we could not unlock Tunisia were you not watching the game Moses Simon was over dribbling not direct enough Victor Moses will give better crosses than Moses Simon period and will even be a better option to replace Chukwueze if he is having a bad game. So you are not aware that Victor James Osimhen is a Star player what are you saying are you not aware that Leon Balogun is our most Expeirneced Defender and can also score goals wjhat are you talking so you only see as far as your nose abi. let me drop some names that MUST!!! I repeat MUST!! be included in March incase you have forgotten..
Victor Osimhen, Emmanuel Dennis, Victor Moses, Ademola Lookman, Cyril Dessers, Calvin Bassey and Leon Balogun. You fans really only see as far as your nose.
Also what good is Musa if he is just there warming the bench?. My guy take a chill pill abeg
Good observation from peterside. After what you said, the question is….
Do we have assistant coach?
Who employed yobo as assistant and force it on Rohr.
Why do we keep allowing government officials into dressing room?
Why promise them heaven and earth? Things a person can’t even do for his community, he will be promising players who have more than that.
Why didn’t Equavon change tactics from wing play after knowing that the Nigerian traditional wing play was neutralized.
Why did we hurriedly sack Rohr without genuine reason? He wouldn’t have gone out of round of 16.
Is better to qualify as best loser in group stage and get to the final, than winning 3 match in group stage only to expose and disgraced by a depleted team with the head coach. How I wish we had assistant coach like that of Tunisia.
That Coach was right. He had no problem thinking through the game as our game plan was same all through all our game . In the modern football no game is the same reason why dynamic display are common so much so underdogs are beating known teams. The Gambia coach varies team play ,the Comoros coach do the same reason why they are having fighting chance Even in a disadvantage point. Let this our local coaches stop saying u can’t change a winning team bcuz if u do dat then your team will be highly predictable and defeatable. No wonder rohr was winning games even if they don’t play well for his team u can’t not easily predict.
Sometimes if I read this pipl, I go just dey laff. This one na crying over milk wey don rotten. Make we look ahead though it is painful our SE are out. Na everybody pain after all. NFF, make una do appoint coach for our SE, make we for move. Cameroon don pass and nothing anyone can do.
Good talk, NFF, let’s move the discussion forward.
Rohr shouldn’t have been sacked 4 weeks to AFCON finals in Cameroon. To be fair to Rohr, he has met all his targets, even though he was always grinding results.
Noisy Nigerians blame him of not playing “beautiful football” but what does that mean if you can’t win matches with beautiful football? See the negative football methods Tunisia adopted againt SE of Nigeria yesterday and it gave them the victory they needed.
There is no hiding place in modern football! Your opponents will always study the your strenght and weakness and try to mitigate your strenght and exploit your weakness. That’s what Tunisia did but Eguavon and his crew failed, woefully, to do.
For sure coach Eguavoen got his tactics wrong in yesterday’s match. This is what the assistant coach is there for but we all know that the way they run things in Nigeria is totally different to others in the whole world.
As a Nigerian, this is not right to do or to say but Mr. Peterside should have called Eguavoen or people around the team after the first half to do something different in the second half in that match yesterday since he has their contacts with him and he’s very close to the coaching crew.
We know our problem in this country but the bad people are too much running the system.
Among the coaching crew, only coach Eguavoen is manageable. Coach Agu, he has nothing to offer. Coach Aigbogun, not competent to be among the coaches. Coach Salisu Yusuf, his “ęgunję” corruption won’t allow him to do his job properly. So he has no place in that team but Amaju Pinnick the king of corruption brought them back.
We should give glory to God that NFF sacked Oga Rohr. It would have been worst. Now, NFF should ask Eguavoen, Amunike, Egbo, Peter Rufai and Enyeama to do the job.
Salisu Yusuf, Aigbogun and Agu should be sacked. Amaju Pinnick and his company should be sacked as well.
We don’t have much time to waste. A foreign coach can not do anything between now and March.
All in all, Mr. No nonsense did his best but it wasn’t good enough but he can do much better if Amunike and Egbo can work together him. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
God will continue to disgrace you. You are thanking God a good Rohr was sacked in an unjust manner just to bring in failure as a coach. You think God reasons backwardly like you? Rohr qualified us for this tournament without stress, it was not Equavon that qualified us.
You sacked Rohr to avoid unknown disaster but employed a carrier of disaster.
I remember you in particular saying that a good coach can get his tactics right even within one week to tournament. Using Tuchel as example, as if club football is Nations Cup.
Why didn’t Equavon perform the magic you said Under 3 weeks? Disgracefully dashing out in round of 16 to depleted team without the head coach in the stands. Tunisia assistant coach defeated Equavon, with 12 Tunisian players on the sideline.
Lol Ndi tiki taka football, community of fancy football without purpose. You see is better we move on a slow and steady progress, than behaving like yahoo boys in issues of football.
Back to sender @Marvelous, Frank and others using bad words against me. For me, God will continue to bless us all because many of you people don’t know what you are talking about.
To you people, Oga Rohr did well abi? The way he played his last two to three matches was good enough to be in Cameroon?
I don’t need to waste my time about this. We hire and we fire. Oga Rohr wasn’t good enough to be the Super Eagles manager for a month if it wasn’t because of Amaju. You can’t change that. The gaffer have failed to build a team for Nigeria and he got sacked. Can’t you see the way Super Eagles played in Afcon?
Oga Rohr was not good enough period. Let’s welcome Amunike, Egbo, Finidi, Peter Rufai and Enyeama to join coach Eguavoen to lead Super Eagles to the world cup qualifiers. God bless Nigeria!!!
The same Eguavouen that was good enough?
We saw the Eagles game on Sunday against Tunisia.
@omo9ja you are a clown. You said 3 weeks is enough for any coach to win the AFCON with the players we have. You said sadiq umar, awoniyi, Nwakali, olayinka should all be drafted into the super eagles. You said we will see total football. Where did we finish with all these? Round of 16. You said eguaveon was tactically better than rohr and he will prove it. How come the outdated rohr took us to 3rd and the genius couldn’t against a covid ravaged squad without their coach. You should bury your head in shame. FIFA ranking isn’t a big deal so let us patiently wait for the latest rankings so we can see the progress we made.
Pikin wey say him mama no go sleep, na orphanage fit am
He actually warned on the same program on channels tv a few days ago, calling on politicians and the likes of femi otedola to not distract the team with all manner of promises,but they didn’t listen,the coach also got wrong with his tactics,I was expecting him to make some tactical switch when it was obvious our game plan has failed,Moses was marked out,I thought he will move him to the right and move disappointing chukwueze to the left or even pull him out completely but he didn’t,maybe he was a bit Rusty coz he hasn’t coached for sometime now,but it was okoye that kicked us out of the tournament
@Omo9ja Mr. No nonsense did his best but it wasn’t good enough but he can do much better.
Wow. That’s interesting.
The time given to Eguavoen was even too short to expect much. NFF time to move the discuss to another base, is it a local coach or a foreign one? @Grant, I fully align with your post.
Nigeria playing from the wings isn’t really a problem. Just that our wingers must learn how to play for the team through the wing. It is not a must you have to beat a player. Your job is majorly to supply a telling cross or pass to dangerous position for the strikers to score. You can send that pass or cross from the middle line seeing the opposing defenders have covered the available space to run that channel. You can even run with the ball into the midfield area dragging your markers with you, while opening space for the left back or right back to take advantage of the created space. But with our wingers, who without doubt are very very talented, they just lack a bit of thinking cap. I will advise that these very young talented players, wazza dazzler Chuzzy, Simon Moses, Ejuke, Samuel Kalu etc look for Luis Figo video and watch it, to learn how to enter into the next level of playing from the wings. Or if possible find Celestine Babayaro to ask how difficult it can be marking out such type of wingers. Lolzz.
Now to the game, everything leading to the crash yesterday, started with the amendment of Rohr’s contract, which ultimately led to his dismissal albeit at the most ungodly moment of preparation. CEREZO tried his best under the most difficult situation, but as much as we tried to support him and the team, the signs were there for all to see that it was going to be an impossible task, but then for patriotism sake, it felt better to ignore the signs. From 40 man list becoming 37 over night, Victor Moses in n then suddenly not in, Victor Osimene daring his club Napoli but pressured by supposedly ‘caring’ Nigerians to have a rethink, simply because they want ‘their own’ to get a chance, 4 goal keepers at the expense of a very good finisher, then to a very willing Dennis suddenly turning down the chance to represent, which has everything to do with a member of the NFF playing safe to maintain his personal working relationship with Watford regarding certain SE player in Watford. Then not forgetting NFF hiring some kangaroo foreign coach to breath down the neck of the interim. Uuuuuuuuuppp Nigeria. It was always going to be a mission impossible. The above are the ones we could see. What about those we are not able to see. Too many selfish interest whether monetary or ego tripping tied to tribalism becoming Nigeria’s football hoodoo.
Personally,I have ceased bothering myself. It’s even helping me to gradually kill off the very frightening interest I used to have for Nigeria football, spending very useful hours upon hours reading/ talking about our football. Now I feel a lot better to bother less, saving those times for other things begging for attention all these while.
That being said I wanna congratulate the boys n coaching crew for their efforts against all odds. No one or team is unbeatable, there is a time to win and a time to lose for everyone. What matters is the Lessons learnt and making sure going forward lessons learnt are corrected.
Thank you Marvelous, God will continue to bless you. You OMO9JA na so God go they disappoint you, foolish guy
See now you forget things easily in December you were ranting like a lose dog, God don humble you with shame God punish your entire life idiot.
Which one be this for football lasan oga o you guys lack sportsmanship always cursing every minute you have a chance to were you guys brought up with curses? Curse this isn’t nice at all
U are very foolish and lack manners,u are cursing a fellow being because of a football argument,u should be ashamed of yourself
EKPE RE
We played and lost,we can’t win all the time,good team nice play with a bit of bad luck,we should move on unto the next game,Ghana in 9 weeks time…….
Pls which better team we would’ve played in this tournament than this vibrant Super Eagle? The simple truth is it wasn’t our day period let’s stop all this blame games and put this wonderful squad we have together with more little additions in the team they can make us proud in la cote irvore 2023. We don’t have time for any Alien Couches coming here for experiments because the next in crucial match in on the way in next 30 days home and away fixtures against Ghana.This Team has the energy to hold their own any day with any team if NFF will allow Aguavone to finish this world cup qualifiers for us.
One wonders how changing a pattern of play in a crucial knockout stage matches will work even when we are minus one man on pitch? Nigerians pls think and be reasonable in our analysis particularly our ex footballers hhhhhmm. No pattern of play works in minus one man matches even when you play above yourselves the end result is always loss especially in knockout matches except home and away fixtures period. Again the type of officiating am seeing in this AFCON is so worrisome that one wonders if there’s a ground plan to ease out certain teams of this tournament in other archive certain targets because this same Referee was in the centre of controversy with Ghana match against South Africa and his calls in our matche yesterday was so troubling especially that straight Red Card incident on Iwobi.
So people let’s calm down and encourage our boys because by now i know they have learnt there lessons from this matches so let’s move on it’s going to get better with this team being together.Up Super Peace
@Tolu Oluseyi Thanks my good brother Let’s encourage our boys with little additions of players on this team they are good to go any day. My people let’s calm down oo This boys can play Eguavone has proven it’s possible. Up Super Eagle. Peace
I thought he said you can’t change tactics in the middle if the competition? So changing tactics after being one goal and hitting the panic button when he could have done that at the start of the game and why was Enuke not even listed? Most of the blame is on the coach ste8 up. The first 2 matches good but let’s call a spade a spade, he goofed on that match.
Useless Peterside Idah. You were not even a great goalkeeper in your days. We don’t need your comment. If Moses Simon, or Sadiq have converted their clear chances and we won the match, you would not have come out to be saying nonsense that his failure to change tactics cost us the game. The fact his it was not our day. Eguavoen tried to change tactics by bringing in Iwobi to support Olayinka in front, but the unfortunate happened with the Red card. He even went on again changing tactics briniging in Sadiq Umar and Olayinka playing behind him, Olayinka gave about 3 clear passes to Sadiq (2) and Simon (1) to score but none was converted. That is a coach that was thinking on the sideline. Kudos to Eguavoen Jo.
Critics always know everything better after and not before a disaster. Eguavoen did a great job. Some players like Chukwueze, Awoniyi and Sadiq performed poorly throughout the AFCON. We missed Osimhen and Ighalo.
So Peterside Idah have mouth to talk isn’t it part of the present predicament. When he was ranting up and down on soccer talk show on DStv. He should enjoy what he caused. Can’t even belief he is a pastor he should have blame Rohr again.
I WILL BLAME THE COACH TACTICS FOR FAILURE TO ANALYSIZE AND INTERPRET THE OUTCOME OF THE MATCH AGAINST GUINEA-BISSAO AND USE IT TO COMPLEMENT TUNISIA MATCH. THERE IS NOTHING THAT WE CAN’T THE WINNING TEAM.
NFF WHAT IS THE NEXT STAGE. THERE IS NO TIME, WORLD CUP PLAY-OFF IS AROUND THE CORNER
Gambia seems to be the dark horse of this tournament. Their key player who is Musa Barrow plays with Michael at Bologna. I tip them for the semi final. They are currently leading Guinea who is without Naby Keita.
The truth here is that Eguavoen did show us that he learned anything from playing at the very top level of football, being coached by a good coach (Westerhof) and himself coaching the eagles once at the nations cup.
I also know that he watches modern day football. unfortunately, he didn’t show us that he learns anything from all these experiences. The excuse of little time holds no water. He has always being with the team at the technical director. So, what is he technical directing in the NFF! The Tunisian coach beat him with a simple strategy – play conservatively (cautiously) and clip the eagles wing. This worked perfectly.
A good coach should be flexible and Eguavoen should have known that after the 1st round all teams were going to study Nigeria and devise a strategy to neutralize our playing pattern. But Eguavoen was never proactive. He stuck to his preferred pattern of play (one that gave him result in the 1st round). The 1st 30 minutes of the match against Tunisia was enough for Eguavoen to have changed his strategy and play more from the midfield. 80% of our attack in the match against Tunisia came from the left flank were Moses was operating and the Tunisians made sure to put 2 to 3 men on him, thus neutralizing any meaningful threat from that side of the field. We even had better outcome on the few occasions that we attacked from Chukwueze’s side of the field.
It is even suicidal for a team to use 2 midfielders in modern day football. You can succeed with this at under 17, under 20, or when you play against very weak teams and those who don’t know you (like we did in the first round). On the 3 occasions that we have won the nations cup when have used 3 solid midfielders in addition to having good wingers. So, why Eguavoen decided to stick to 2 midfielders beats my imagination. Not that he didn’t have the midfielders in his team, he just did not think it appropriate to deploy them against Tunisia. This alone makes him unfit to handle the super eagles.
In all. most of our coaches have not proved themselves to be capable of handling challenging competitions and it put them on the same level with Rohr or considerable below Rohr. There is nothing wrong with playing beautifully. In fact teams that play interesting football win more matches than those that want to pack the bus. Liverpool, Man City, and Real Madrid are good examples. If our local coaches can’t prove themselves to be capable of handling tough competitions, then, I’d rather we go for foreign coach. But we must go for a foreign coach that knows what he is doing. Eguavoen had the players at his disposal but he lack knowledge about deployment of appropriate strategies.
Someone like Tom Santfiet who currently coaches Gambia would have been a better choice than some Portuguese who has no good track record. It’s better to hire a foreigner who has coached other African teams and knows the African football terrain than some paycheck seeking fraud.
My fear is that this Portuguese will come and do the same thing that Rohr did for all the years that he was eagles coach. Any coach who can flow with our football culture and pattern of play should just not near the eagles.
All these bla bla bla about changing strategy could work and it could also back fire, Barcelona with Xavi and iniesta stick to their Philosophy and it works for them, Arsenal under Arsene Wenger has a definite playing pattern which they hardly change. This same pattern of Eguavoen worked for 3 games and it almost worked against Tunisia, All the trash the Tunisian coach was saying about neutralizing our wingers, are nothing but a ruse, Simon was still going past their fullbacks, I took my time to re
Watch the match. We actually were not outsmarted, we were only unlucky and unfortunate, Okoyes error and Iwobi’s sending off aided the Tunisia and not any tactical superiority, Simon and Sadiq had the Keeper to beat and both fluffed the chances even with one man down.
Guys i saw this coming the very day i saw the headlines that some politicians have access to the teams camp it’s a pity that we refused to learn from the past mistakes really pity what politicians has caused this great country only God we help us.
I had a feeling that all the promises and stupid politicians will bring some sort of negativity. The boys did well in the first game without all the bs. Next time do no pick Buhari’s call lmaoo ask Anthony Joshua. I’m just kidding tho but real talk Eguavoen is the main culprit here.
Abeg let us leave politician disturbance Jare. We lost the game simple due our tactics that failed us.
Football as it is today requires that a coach should always arm himself with at least two or more tactics into any game.
Moreso when we stated losinng good players to injury,club antics and NFF corrupt manner all of us know that we might not make it far.
Our hope only came alive because of our performance against Egypt.
Lol, We Nigerians are like Oliver Twist, always asking, changing tactics? Is it not when you have tactics that you will change it , hire a real coach and allow him come in with his entourage, they work better that way and stop all this attaching a local coach with them, that is just a waste of space no matter what you think you are trying to achieve. Loosing like that yesterday is a perfect example of a tactical deficiency. There was no single reason why we shouldn’t win that match, everything was on for us to win and we lost, and that boiled down to coach, that’s it , but it’s what it is.
Bring him back…. it’s not late at all. With due respect, Rhor and Eguavon could do some great job together. I will suggest we recall Rhor and probably include Amuneke or finidi and Eguavon to prepare the team…
I’m not looking for excuses as I’ve said before Eguavoen to me was the main culprit but other factors not to be ignored such as the refereeing. How can you let a Senegalese officiate when you knw we are in the same line to meet Senegal if we had qualified for the semi and they qualified too, of course a Senegalese would fancy Tunisia over Nigeria. Secondly why would a controversial such as Maguette Ndiaye who officiated the Ghana vs South Africa game make it to the Nations cup? The fool happened to be the one that officiated yesterday. African football has a long way to go.
Karma will be served hit for him tomorrow when Cape Verde knocks Senegal out….lol I hope. I want either Ivory coast or Gambia to win this not even Cameroon with their falsification of covid tests to render teams useless.
So it was the officiating that shackled Moses Simon and Samuel Chukuweze….? LMAOooo.
It was the officiating that forced the technical crew to continue using a tactic that had long been found out…?
Nigerians are really experts are cooking up excuses to console themselves.
Did you read the first line where I said I’m not making excuses for our loss? Please read carefully before you jump into conclusions but just pointing out other issues. It seem you are happy about the loss just to justify whatever….at the end of the day the national team is ours and nobody loves it more than the other.. I hope u keep the same energy If we don’t qualify for the WC..Rohr is gone the NFF goofed and that is a closed chapter….No amount of wailing will bring him back. We can only move forward.
If you read my comments since after the match you will see I blamed Eguavoen’s tactics and I still stand by that…..The referee did make questionable calls but he wasn’t the sole reason for our exit…Eguavoen’s tactics and other little factors caused the loss. You were not this vocal in the group stage when they played well but now you are out and about lol..I wonder what you would have said if we got to the finals. Its football and losses happen. Rohr is not the best thing that has happened to our football. Westerhoff and Bonfere’s achievements are way ahead of Rohr but kudos to him for qualifying us from one of the hardest groups in WC qualifying but then he himself had some bad games. In footbamm you either win, lose, or draw.
Hahahahaha…your consciences are biting y’all real bad…LMAOOoooo..Any small thing y’all will revert back to Rohr just to console yourselves….LMAOoo. That says a lot.
Please what was there to say in the group stages where 3 can qualify out of 4….? We have never defeated Egypt before right…? Or We have never defeated teams like Sudan or Guinea Bissau…? We didnt lose 6 straight matches heading into AFCON. So what was there to say…? All the things y’all said in the group stage what was the end result…? An ordinary assistant coach with no profile anywhere humbled y’all (+ 9 coaches) and brought you back down to earth.
I never said anything in the group stages because I knew our players’ individual talents can power us through the group stages of ANY 24 team AFCON. This is not 1982. I said it then repeatedly that the real AFCON starts in the knock out stages, that is when we will know where we are headed, that is when teams who are led by thinkers will be separated by teams led by sheer brute force. That is where the direction of where the pendulum of victory will swing will stop being decided n the pitch but on the bench.
I stated boldly before the AFCON started that we wouldn’t play 5 matches at this AFCON. So there was no need to say much afterwards. You dont talk too much when you are convinced about what you are saying. You just talk and let rabble rousers bark back at you and then sidon look.
I hope y’all are enjoying your success now, blaming everybody including Issa Hayatou and the innocent referees who interpreted the laws of the game PERFECTLY on the night…….LMAOOo. At least you won the best coach of the group stages trophy. That should take the place of a podium finish……LMAOOOoooo
I hope you all get more excuses ready IF anything happens to our World cup ambitions.
I am not reverting back to Rohr only named him because he is the basis of your antagonizing because he got fired and you are angry about it. If you don’t have any suggestions on the way forward then just keep it moving crying over spilled milk wont help anything we have a crucial game in about 8 weeks….All these antagonizing I don’t understand if you are a Nigerian football fan or a villain. Eguavoen got it wrong in that match that’s it…..If you like cry till tomorrow about Rohr….he will never return and I repeat he is not the best thing to have happened to our football he did a great job at some point but coaches get hired and fired. Tell me what he achieved that any other coach hasn’t achieved with our national team..
We all knew it was time for Rohr to move on. I for one expected him to have moved on after the AFCON in 2019. It’s not his fault that they decided to retain him and gave him targets. In the court of public opinion when someone meets his targets what is the justification to sack him?? Ok we agree he should be sacked, but me and you and every reasonable fans knew that it will be a disaster sacking him on the eve of a major tournament and as we can see that’s exactly what happened. Our football has now returned to 1982. Even a novice can see that we do not have a technical bench in Cameroon. All we have are failures just depending on the individual brilliance of the players. They’re counting on them to play like the 1994 SuperEagles. Even Westerhoff in that tournament didn’t use Finidi and Amunike until the knockout stages. Let’s just focus on fixing our problems and hope we scale through Ghana to reach Qatar. For now it doesn’t matter who will be leading the team henceforth we must overcome Ghana first.
Hahahahaha…once again, he has reverted back to Rohr….LMAOOoo.
The basis of my antagony is not Rohr….far from it. I will antagonize sacking even a Christian Chukwu or Imama Amakpakabo just before, or in the middle of a tournament because I know the implications. The basis of my antagony has been the stupidity of firing a coach close to or in the middle of a major endeavor like the AFCON. If Eguavoen was coach of the SE till 1 month to the 2023 AFCON in CIV, I will still antagonize his dismissal. Talk more of where there is not basis for it. Go ask all those who were around in KON days, when Keshi’s team was wiggly waggle circa 2013 AFCON, I was one of the few that advocated that he be left alone…let a coach finish his assignment and thereafter you can do whatever you wanna do.
Do you guys think coaching is just all about making players play 11 v 11 in training and selecting 11 out of them on matchday…? Do you know how long it takes to teach 23 different people to do 23 different things at 23 different times in 23 different scenarios….?
Now you are asking for way forward…..LMAOOoooo. We gave you the way forward long ago….LMAOooo… your blindness and hatred just didnt let you see beyond your nostrils. Y’all cited Tuchel and DiMatteo as if club football is the same as National team football. As if it was the NFF that was sabotaging Chelsea before Tuchel and DiMatteo were hired by the club. As if champions league that takes month to conclude is the same as AFCON that will be over in weeks and hence no time to instill, learn, unlearn and re-learn the approach to games per scenarios we find ourselves.
Rohr will never return, just like he was never going to be Nigeria’s coach forever. We nailed that into your ears a million times, but the tongue that is in a hurry to lick the soup that is still on fire will get itself burnt. The dog that refuses to listen to the hunter’s whitsle will inadvertently get lost.
I hope yall are enjoying your burnt tongues now….LMAOooo.
We knew there will be fall outs from the AFCON because we had already primed ourselves for failure (forget the initial honeymoon and “freedom to showboat” all in the name of expression) having not learnt from our past experiences and those of other countries that wallowed in the same water of stupidity. And with the world cup playoffs, equally as important, just by the corner, there was the likelihood of the anticipated fallouts spilling over, knowing how we handle fallouts in Nigeria where everybody begins to blame everybody and nobody wanting to take responsibility……LMAOOooo.
And true to premonitions, some people are still here blaming officiating….LMAOoooo. At the moment, the SE is coachless….LMAOOOo….since Eguavoen has stepped down. With the way Eguavoen was exposed by an ordinary assistant coach, the jury is out on whether he should lead us to the den of lions in Kumasi or whether we should ride on the Pajero that leaves teams 25 place below where he met them on the fifa ladder…..LMAOOOoo.
We dont need a way forward yet o…..LMAOOoo. We deserve to suffer a little bit more so that next time, if at all we still learn lessons in that country, we will learn. Way forward ko……LMAOOooo.
Sit down behind you keyboard and still be chronicling what Rohr achieved and didn’t achieve….LMAOOooo. We have just not made the Qfinals of AFCON for the 1st time since 1982.
Rohr might not have achieved anything, even though he inherited a SE that couldnt qualify for even ordinary AFCON anymore, but at least we know with him in charge we were NEVER going to lose at Kumasi….LMAOOoo. That one is a sure bankable bet.
Guys, “our own” Austin Eguavouen doesn’t have it so it would be unfair for us to expect him to give what he doesn’t have.
The problem started when the coach was fired weeks to AFCON without any good reason but according to them, to avoid a disaster only Pinnick and his gang could see.
Who ever leads the NFF in the future should learn never to try fixing something that’s not broken.
Two weeks for Eguavoen was really too small for any meaning result. I think we should pressurize the Federation to sign an 8 years contract with this set of domestic coaches.
Hummmmn this your comment is full of sense expecially last statement”try to fix what is not broken” that makes me to remember one Yoruba adage which says osa Boba le gbemi fimile no as ba mi..
One mistake Nigeria made is to sack rohr , thinking that it will be easy for another coach with short period and karma of sacking rohr is beginning of wisdom. I Don’t when black man will get sense and that’s why white people call any black man Negro or Monkey even the educated ones and uneducated. How can you sack coach few weeks to big tournament? Dose it make sense? Now everybody can see the result. Nigeria NFF chairman suppose to resign, if its white man, he will hornorably resign but greedy black man will die there on top of curoption.
It now begs the question? Why was rohr sacked just few weeks to the tournament if we knew we weren’t going to make it out of the first stage of the knock out stages. Wouldn’t it have been better to have allowed rohr to continue, take his team to the mundial, see off the work he started before sacking him? At least, he would have gotten to the finals, thereby upholding our pedigree. Now, the disaster mr mango head (picnic) said he wanted to avoid by sacking rohr has already happened. Everybody is pained, sad and angry. Death threats flying around everywhere against our players. This is absurd. I think picnik and co should be sacked as well bcs they are the architects of our downfall. We warned and wailed against their stupid, foolish, self destruct plans but nobody would listen. One stupid idiot came here and said it is better to fail with our own. Now, it has happened and I believe everybody is now happy eh. At times I just wonder the kind of creatures we have running the affairs of this country? I heard that they knew that rohr would perform well at the mundial, hence making it hard to sack him eventually as he has been a headache to them. They plotted and removed him and put mr technical director that couldn’t simply change tactics when the chips were down. Rohr is yet to access his fruit of his labour all bcs some wicked idiots deliberately want him to suffer before he gets his money. Nemesis is already here with us. We shall surely bear the brunt of the irrational and wicked decision of a few bunch of idiots. I wonder why the sports minister and odegbami haven’t not come out to say anything. Yes, they’ve gone dumb all of a sudden. Nobody speaks queens English anymore, and nobody writes encyclopedias again as to why we failed and the factors that led to it. Karma is a bitch. This is just the beginning.
@Oakfield Nope I would rather the work Eguavoen is doing. we should not forget all the calamity leading into the Tournament Rohr Sacking not being one them, Emma Dennis and watford Saga, the best attacker in Africa missing from our squad Victor James Osimhen!! Leon Balogun injury(Very experienced defender). also Eguavoen Made some key mistakes in squad selections and replacements of players. i.e Olisah Ndah Being called up and forgetting Rangers star Calvin Bassey, Also Olayinka over Dessers. The Ademola Lookman Switch( That is down to Rohr). And one of the Biggest blunders in my books leaving out an Experienced Afcon Specialist in the shape of Victor Moses a player that is in imperial form at the moment and taking Ahmed Musa there to warm the Bench? Who ever Thinks that this was not a contributing factor to our ouster is kidding themselves
I will say again WHEN NIGERIA AND NIGERIANS HAS THE BALLS TO Call FOR THE DROPPING OF AHMED MUSA OUR FORTUNES WILL CHANGE IMAGINE HAVING VICTOR MOSES GIVING THOSE CROSSES THAT CAUSED SPARTAK MOSCOW TO TOP A GROUP THAT HAD LEICESTER CITY AND NAPOLI AND OSIMHEN OR DENNIS THERE TO FINISH IT OFF MAN WE WOULD HAVE TOSSED ASIDE TUNISIA EASILY ALSO CALVIN BASSEY WOULD NOT HAVE ALLOWED THE ERROR THAT AINA DID!.
WE NEED NOT FORGET OSIMHEN HAS THE ABILITY TO TURN ANY GAME ON ITS HEAD HE IS THAT TYPE OF PLAYER.
IN MY BOOKS WHEN NIGERIA GETS THE SELECTIONS RIGHT GOING INTO A TOURNAMENT OUR FORTUNES WILL CHANGE PERIOD!!!!..
GERNOT ROHR GAME WAS SORE TO THE EYES!!
Nigeria problem was team selection and the calamity leading into the Tournament Rohr Sacking not being one them, Emma Dennis and watford Saga, the best attacker in Africa missing from our squad Victor James Osimhen!! Leon Balogun injury(Very experienced defender). also Eguavoen Made some key mistakes in squad selections and replacements of players. i.e Olisah Ndah Being called up and forgetting Rangers star Calvin Bassey, Also Olayinka over Dessers. The Ademola Lookman Switch( That is down to Rohr). And one of the Biggest blunders in my books leaving out an Experienced Afcon Specialist in the shape of Victor Moses a player that is in imperial form at the moment and taking Ahmed Musa there to warm the Bench? Who ever Thinks that this was not a contributing factor to our ouster is kidding themselves
I will say again WHEN NIGERIA AND NIGERIANS HAS THE BALLS TO Call FOR THE DROPPING OF AHMED MUSA OUR FORTUNES WILL CHANGE IMAGINE HAVING VICTOR MOSES GIVING THOSE CROSSES THAT CAUSED SPARTAK MOSCOW TO TOP A GROUP THAT HAD LEICESTER CITY AND NAPOLI AND OSIMHEN OR DENNIS THERE TO FINISH IT OFF MAN WE WOULD HAVE TOSSED ASIDE TUNISIA EASILY ALSO CALVIN BASSEY WOULD NOT HAVE ALLOWED THE ERROR THAT AINA DID!.
WE NEED NOT FORGET OSIMHEN HAS THE ABILITY TO TURN ANY GAME ON ITS HEAD HE IS THAT TYPE OF PLAYER.
IN MY BOOKS WHEN NIGERIA GETS THE SELECTIONS RIGHT GOING INTO A TOURNAMENT OUR FORTUNES WILL CHANGE PERIOD!!!!..
GERNOT ROHR GAME WAS SORE TO THE EYES!!
Eguavoen; “I think it was a mistake on my part not dressing Chidera Ejuke for the game against Tunisia. I take responsibility for whatever that happened at the round of 16.”
There you have it. Who knows maybe Ejuke could’ve been the X factor in that game. As good as Moses was in the tournament his crosses were abysmal to say the least.
I was wondering why Ejuke wasn’t on the match day squad….Eguavoen really lost his senses. A tight defence like that of the Tunisian would have been perfect for a player like Ejuke to make incursions and probably get a foul and ease simon of some pressure. Honestly Eguavoen pissed me off with that nonsense. Lacked rudimentary tactics befitting of someone who calls himself a coach and technical director coupled with the fact that he had played football at the highest level…
Ahmed Musa took Ejuke’s chance… People like Musa is just to pump up chest and say I am “captain”…
The only thing I remembered of Musa when he entered was falling to the ground when challenged by a Tunisian. We still have good players though… Maybe Nwakaeme should be involved against Ghana. Real strong and mature player afterall he is our best in Turkey. Mancini just recalled Mario Balotelli to Azzuris and give to Balotelli he does not joke in Italy’s colour… If na Nigeria we would say he is old. School. It was still Rohr who continued with Musa even though inactive… dude could not even kick a ball in Cameroon… Lol. He is still looking to add caps for history towards world cup and world cup proper. It’s well… We asked for our own but it’s an Eguaveon limited in tactics NFF presented… Give us Amuneke/Manu and Ugabde/Finidi and give them 5years contract depending on performance after two years.
@JimmyBall my friend which one be Ugbade/Finidi or Amunike/Manu again o? Your eyes never clear say none of our Local coaches has the pedigree to coach SE after this mishap?
Which club has Ugbade ever coached after assisting Manu? What has been Manu’s antecedents post 2013 U-17 WC……….he failed woefully with the 2015 U-20 and failed again with 2019 U-17 WC and hasn’t coached any team again since then.
Amunike as you know has been a failure in any senior team he coached ever since he won 2015 U-17 WC, failed woefully with the 2017 U-20, Sacked in Tanzania after losing all 3 matches at AFCON 2019, failed at Sudan club, demoted to academy scout in an Egypt league modest club.
Finidi only recently started coaching Eyimba and so far has not been convincing so far, languishing at 11th position in the NPFL with only 3 wins and 3 losses 1 draw, so what pedigree does he have to coach SE.
With all the above profiles, do you still believe these four coaches can achieve anything with the great SE of Nigeria? Let’s be real for once in your life and stop being blinded by Racism or Nepotism bro, we just don’t have any capable local / indigenous coach to tinker our dear SE to greater heights my brother
Just after Ogunefon was appointed, I raised the issues of how Ogunefon doest’t have the credentials of leading SE to success in the current AFCON but no one believed me, I sighted in particular how he failed to win a single Knockout stage match in 2006 AFCON with the most talented group of players after the ’94 set plus how he failed with the U-20, U-23, and the various club side he has ever handled in NPFL to date.
Now we saw the result, he blinded our eyes in the group stage by becoming a motivation speaker to the boys instead of being a coach with tactical input, ‘guys go out there and express yourselves, play with so much freedom and give us 9ja flavour, I even dey surprised that the musician FLAVOUR wasn’t in the squad lol.
Make anybody no tell me again say he tried o, no be group matches we dey take know a good coach because you still get another chance to progress. Na knockout stages the tactics begin decos once you mess up you are out and dry.
Rohr lost an inconsequential match to Madagascar but matches on to beat Cameroon, South Africa and Tunisia to win Bronze but hey nobody hail GR but someone dropped out in the round of 16 in AFCON, them come say he tried…… Nawa for you guys o
Even tho I felt Rohr’s tactics were starting to dwindle. I felt it was a monumental mistake to sack a coach 2 or 3 weeks before a tournament such as the Afcon. I was thinking ok maybe after the Afcon. Eguavoen did well in the group stages and the footballing world went from seeing us as non contenders to Favourites after our first 2 games only to fail himself woefully. How can you go to war with one strategy…Or showing the world Nigeria’s strength on youtube before a tournament lol….Man goofed big time but the question I have to you is that do we have time for a different coach before the WC play offs?
Honestly I don’t think we have time for a different coach before the playoffs, but Ghana too will be playing that encounter with a different coach. I won’t mind Eguavoen to handle the job, but it’s very difficult for me to stick my neck on any local coach to give us that ticket. I may be wrong though, but let’s see what decision those people who have taken our football back to 1982 makes in the coming days/weeks.
That’s a problem. The time is just too short…The NFF is so useless that they haven’t decided if they will keep him or Peseiro will take charge of those games……Hopefully by the end of the week we should know.
I raised that alarm here hours before the match, when I saw the 23 players listed. Why would you leave Ejuke out of matchday squad? I don’t know whether he would have made any difference, but at least he has the potential to attract 2/3 players on him freeing up others, something Simon’s presence possesses too. Unfortunately, Simon didn’t make the Tunisians pay for putting extra men on him, he choose to dribble. There some teams that would punish you well if you try that rubbish of putting multiple men on one player.
There is no time Nigeria not among the contender for AFCON. Our records and pedigree are there at least we have been getting to the Semi final for a very long time until it was recently broken by our “own”. As for Balotelli recall back to Italy squad plz always try to read your write up and see if it makes sense you are comparing Balotelli of now to the one before. When Rohr brought the idea of Ighalo what were you guys saying? Isn’t it part of why you want the man sack by all means? Is Balotelli and Ighalo situation not similar? What is to Balotelli in Italy team today is Ighalo and Musa if you don’t know. Italy coach went for experience as majority of Italy squad are young and made up of new players because they might meet a very experience team like Portugal in WC playoff.
Ighalo and Musa are not the same. @tayo when will you learn to read situations properly???? for goodness’s sake!! At least Ighalo is playing regularly and contributing to goals albeit in a Saudi League like Balotelli. You keep mentioning Musa, Musa this Musa that haba!!. instead of you to use your Block head and reason. What the hell did Musa contribute in this Afcon Eguavoen was to scared to even field the man. And Again Victor Moses is ahead of all of them for Goodness sake he is the reason Spartak Moscow Topped their Europa league group that Included SSC Napoli and Leicester City. Your own is that you no sabi better thing you are just a bloody Mediocre confusionist. Instead of you to see the need for a experienced Afcon specialist and Nigerian Legend in Ball which Victor Moses is, you go open mouth dey hala Musa nawa o… I tire for your matter bro
Come this Ugo Iwunze what’s your own with Ahmed Musa na. You don’t make analysis atall. Your own is to come here ranting Ahmed Musa this, Ahmed Musa that.. All your comments here 99.9 percent of them must have the name Ahmed Musa in it. What’s your problem??? Don’t allow me carry Koran and go to that mosque wey him donate money for use am swear for you o.. LMAO!! And be rest asure say it will be 100 percent potent on you if I do that.. LMAO!
Mancini is recalling Balotelli because they know he is a big stage player and currently it strikers can’t rattle the net so Italy scared of struggling for goals and they know the personality Balotelli brings of he chooses to play ball… Ighalo is welcomed back once his club won’t start that their contract drama again… but from my honest mind we no longer need him. We failed against Tunisia because Eguaveon could not deploy players in the right way to deal with Tunisia… Iheanacho should have started on the right Awoniyi middle and Simon on the left… If wings failed like it did he was supposed to have moved Simon to the middle (AM) and bring Olayinka to the left… As for Olayinka Position on the left side… that’s where he is most lethal for club and has been playing for the last three years… We were supposed to be using 433 to attack and 4231 to press and defend… that would have won us that game… Playing a 424 in attack and defending with tracking attacking into a 442 left us with our midfield exposed… the goal was the problem of Aribo and Ndidi to be nowhere and Msakni punished Maduka who is amateur anyday allday… One love. Fans saw what our technical crew composing of a load and consortium of coaches couldn’t see… all those Alloy Agu, Yobo and Salisu should be driven away including Aigbogun… they either go get top coaching badges or be lost forever… Meanwhile Amaju Pinick is a mango head goat… Lol.
…We failed against Tunisia because Eguaveon could not deploy players in the right way to deal with Tunisia…….
__@Jimmyball.
Oga Jimmyball which side u dey na???
I thought u were among those praise singers that Eguavoen is using players in their right way hence the success we’re enjoying.
All of a sudden he didn’t use players in their right way.
This is the same starting xi that beat both Egypt and Sudan.
Same position…. Same approach…. Same pattern….
So which one are you not saying now???
U ppl are confusing us o.
@JimmyBall,
I laff in spanish at this your comment.
Na Tony Nwakaeme name you dey hala now abi…
Kontinu
@GentleD… We have been talking about Anthony Nwakaeme forever… Is he not better than Musa these days and Onyekuru? What did Onyekuru go to do AFCON? Let’s begin to call players that can contribute not those who are ineffective the coach can’t even be confident to field them… But I guess it’s the likes of Onyekuru that are paying to play… I want to anyone on this forum to tell me Anthony Nwaekeme is a subpar player…
…Fans saw what our technical crew composing of a load and consortium of coaches couldn’t see… all those Alloy Agu, Yobo and Salisu should be driven away including Aigbogun… they either go get top coaching badges or be lost forever……
__oga @Jimmyball
Oga e be like sey your eyes don dey clear small small…
Are they not our own again?
I thought playing in Europe & winning 500 caps for naija is enough criteria to be SE coach.
I don’t see any need of people with such pedigree acquiring any coaching badges again o.
After all they are all ex international that spilled their blood to serve the country unpaid.
Why not go and drag Victor Mosses who retired voluntary from national team and is not willing to rescind his decision by force. It’s you that doesn’t reason with your head. The guy is not ready to come back is it by force. Musa is still playing active football in Turkey so it is non of your business if he is invited or not. When Nigeria won the nations cup in 1994 Keshi was not a playing player but was there to provide leadership and he eventually lifted the cup on that very night. You and your likes mentioned several players which most of them was part of the team that was just bundled out in second round by a depleted Tunisian team and they could not do anything. So keep your stinking mouth shut.
You folks are absolutely ridiculous. Go on YouTube dummies the tactics and philosophy of almost all the top coaches is on there. From Mourinho, Pep, Pochetino, Wenger etc they all have done the analysis of their tactics still doesn’t mean every team can stop it. There is something called execution of tactics that just knowing doesn’t mean you can thwart it. Guordiola that is dominating the EPL with Man city so his tactics are CIA secrets? Opposing teams don’t have thousands of hours of footage to watch and what happens when they face CIty? The teams that park the bus some playing 5-4-1 how successful are they in stopping Man City? Nigerians are big reason can’t have anything good because you all are always judging everything with emotion instead of critically looking at things and find ways to build on the positives. Here you have a coach missing several key players, barely had full squad for a few days before a major tournament yet still played good attacking football and dominated opponents that played in the so called Arab cup where you will think they will have a better understanding of each other. Even the Tunisia match we lost if Oshimen was there i’m almost 90% sure he would have scored that goal Sadiq missed. How many times have we seen him run into those through passes and either blast with power, the keepers legs was wide open and he could have got it through there or chipped it into the far corner. That is almost Oshimens signature goal.
I’m sick of Nigerians and the short sightedness. Eguavon has given us a template to build on to be dominant and instead of us appreciating and trying to build on that you clowns are still on the Rohr, local coach, foreign coach camps as if all our objectives are not the same. If SE gets another winger like Simon on the right side, Oshimen back with a good back up striker, a solid consistent AM as good as Iwobi on his good days or better and with Eguavon philosophy of mass attack, mass defense and play every game like a cup final with a high intensity press (gegenpress) like we saw against Egypt and in the group phases. You think Nigeria won’t dominate the world while entertaining us? You folks are so emotional you don’t even realize how stingy and compact our defense really was. Now add the few minor tweaks to add to the explosiveness of the attack from the Wings and Middle and their you have a winning team that is ready to take on anybody. That was my major problem with Rohr started well then suddenly became scared of everyone. If you cannot dominate and impose yourself and game plan on Cape Verde. If you are scared to venture forward and play your game against such opposition is it when you face the likes of France, Italy, Germany, Belgium Argentina that you will play with confidence? If you are jittery against teams where their players are local or play in obscure leagues what do you think will be the mindset or psyche when it’s Mbappe, Messi, Gnabry, Ronaldo etc on the other side of the opposition?
It’s just sad reading some of the commentary on here and very depressing. Now i see our problems go beyond just leadership. The backwardness and poverty has really skewed a lot of our thinking and I’m just consider myself blessed to have been able to travel and see how things are done and built on in developed countries. I pray to God he gives us better leaders because it really pains me to see the ignorance, anger, and just vile ppl spew on here rather than seasoned, thoughtful and insightful reasoning.
Let’s build on what we saw here with Eguavon . He doesn’t have to be in charge but I have no doubt of his philosophy is implemented with minor variations SE will really enter a golden era. Imagine explosive wingers like Simon on both wings, a solid AM to feed Oshimen through the middle and the high intensity mass attack mass defense we saw against Egypt and in group phases with clinical finishing which team in the world do you think can stop us?
God bless you for this write up. There is still no team in this Afcon playing quality soccer like the Super Eagles did. The pundits have said it the Nigeria is far better in the tournament than others, yet we are depleted. Watching Senegal game and am shock at the standard of there game. So pathetic
Congratulations to Super Eagles for winning “AFCON QUALITY SOCCER PLAYING TEAM TROPHY”…..
LMAO…… These people will never stop amusing us.
As if 20 years later people would remember which team well and forget the one that won the trophy.
Nigeria must face karma for sacking rohr at this point in time. Africa don’t know that karma is real, karma is mother nature not juju