Former Nigeria international, Emmanuel Amuneke, has expressed his readiness to be Super Eagles coach if given the opportunity to work in that capacity.
Amuneke made this known in an interview on News Central TV, where he stated that if the country finds him fit to add value to the team, he’s willing to accept the chance.
“I am a Nigerian, all my life I have served Nigeria as a player. If Nigerians now find me fit to add value to the team, of course, it is a welcome development.
“But for now it is not necessary to talk about this issue.We have to support the team and other Nigerians, they are going through a lot of sadness.
Read Also: AFCON 2023: President Tinubu Honours Super Eagles With National Awards, Lands
“We all want the best for our country, the best for our football. This has to be respected.”
The 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold medalist also lamented the poor utilisation of Super Eagles striker, Victor Osimhen in the team’s attack at the just concluded 2023 Africa Cup of Nation.
He said that the Napoli striker spent a lot of time helping the team to defend.
“You know in this AFCON, Osimhen spent a lot of time helping the team to defend, and when you have a striker that is so dangerous, move a lot and then at the end of the day he is coming to defend. I think it reduces his quality.
“Osimhen is a player that when you look at him, moves a lot and needs players that can actually, you know, give him those balls into spaces where he can become effective and functional.”
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32 Comments
It is your turn to turn things around, coach Amunike.
NFF and many Nigerians don’t believe in our own but prefer Oyinbo coach that has nothing to offer Nigeria.
You are the best for the job, not Oga Rohr or coach Paseiro.
You know you people more than the foreign coach. Imagine Oga Paseiro saying Musa knows much better than him, and it shows why Super Eagles did not win the final of the Afcon because the coach did not know much about our players.
You can do better coach if NFF can give you four years to rebuild Super Eagles. Nigerians did not trust Oga Paseiro until he managed to surprise us a bit before he got exposed against South Africa and Ivory Coast.
It is your turn coach, Amunike. Enough of foriegn coach for now. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
God bless you
Paseiro must go!
Amunike is the answer to our Super Eagles
Can NFF just give this man this job already so that all this begging for the SE job on the pages of the internet just ends.
Its becoming nauseating…! We all know how it will end.
NFF please give him this job and let us have peace. Enough said about him and his credentials already.
Why should they give him the job? This is the Super Eagles of Nigeria….he should know better. Anyone who wants to coach the team must merit it, and tbh he hasn’t…there is almost no record of his success at this level. Please don’t mention his Tanzania record, we all know how it ended. Finidi is doing the right thing now, so, maybe in the next couple of years, he can be entrusted with one of the youth national teams and he can start from there. That Omonaija is just not okay…
I knew it !
This man should just go get some life at Abia Warriors or Rangers and stop disturbing himself.
HS never spent a full 6 months coaching a senior team, dumped by several clubs and a country, banished to youth teams and he’s here sounding delusional.
Keep waiting for the national team job, you gonna wait till thy kingdom come. Only a retard organization will hire someone with no senior team coaching pedigree to lead the Super Eagles.
Trophyless in all his coaching years with senior teams.
Another Gbajue sighted!!
I see know reason why we shdnt extend Peseiro contract, after all he meant his target and continuity is key, we all know Peseiro can play attractive football as well but decided to ground out result anyway anyhow at the AFCON, I will surely extend him for continuity sake, just imagine this team with ndidi and boniface?
@Femi, it shows that you don’t understand what is coming to hurt Super Eagles if NFF retained coach Paseiro.
He will never use his reserve bench, and he will not change the way he plays until he crashes out of the tournament just like what happened in Ivory Coast. So, it is not about he made it to the Afcon final, but how he made it to the final and how he played at the final should be the areas we should look into. What is the purpose of getting to the final and messed up everything?
He was unable to read the game against Ivory Coast even we were lucky against South Africa. We can’t continue like this kę.
In my opinion, Amunike will do better than him, period. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Did your amuneke even qualify for U20 AFCON in the first place…LMAOoo…and has he not been part of the coaching crews that failed to qualify for 2017 AFCON and the 2022 World cup…?
Imagine dissing a 24team AFCON medalist for someone who is still sleeping on some U- tournament trophy won a decade ago…LMAOoo.
I’ll rather go and hire Mauritania’s coach who has led 2 debutant minnows like Comoros and Mauritania to the R16 of AFCON.
Please go and tell your amuneke to go and qualify for u20 afcon first before even dreaming of “doing better” than a podium finish at the main AFCON…LMAOoo
Don’t mind this Olegbese who is always found to be ‘sack this, sack that’ without side effect. Omo9ja, tell me of a Nigerian born coach who have carried us to any consequential senior competitions, l will tell you l have a big River Niger Bridge to sell to Omon9a and his cronies. Thank you, Dr Drey, for always given us the idea of how to think deeply before we say something that makes sense. Paseiro is not going anywhere. Amuneke, continue to wait to coach Nigeria super eagle until the Kingdom come. After all, the Jews are still waiting for the Marsaiah.
I don’t support the sacking of Pesairo neither do i support the hiring of Amunike as our National team coach, he has no record that qualifies him for such a huge responsibility. The coach shocked me when he took the team to the finals because i never gave either him or the team a chance to make it out of the group stage and i was not alone , even most journalist both local and foreign plus football pundits did not consider the super eagles as some ofth e real contenders for the title. So the coach tried but he messed up in the finals, no coach that really know what he is doing will go to an Afcon finals to play full defensive game, Osimehen spent more time in our eigtheen than in our opponents half. But i believe he would have learnt his lessons, afterall this is his first real test and he passed , why sack him for who? The Technical department should help him boost the team with new players. i was shocked to find thatnot even one player was considered from the under 20 team that got the the quarter finals in argentinal ‘ It is time to bring in new wingers, midfielders and defenders. OLa Aino shoul be moved to DM, he will serve the team better as a DM, Moses Simon shoul go to the bench, he cannot play pinpointed crosses, he is so wasteful with our freekicks and cornerkicks, this guy has been in the National team since about 2015 yet he has failed to improve on his weaknesses, Ahmed Musa should be dropped, chukweze should be droppedfor somtimes so that he will learn his lessons, he is still needed though, Omeruo ,Alhassan Yusuf should be dropped, where is Samuel Kalu? he is a more intelligent winer tha Moses Simon, orban and many more
Abeg continue to speak up, don’t listen to all this animals who like to come here and bark nonsense. The Last 3 AFCONS was won by local coaches, FA who had balls and stood with them whether they win or lose. Southgate is their, even when he should be sacked after the last Euro’s his FA stood by him. But we the moment the locals don’t win anything they quick to want to get rid of them. Imagine if it were a local coach that handled the world cup qualifiers and with the 2 draws we had, your best guess is mine he would have been fired. One nuisance is mentioning what has amuneke achieved, Did he not take Tanzania to the AFCON after 39 years, isn’t that an achievement. We know the ass-lickers. Am not surprised they trying to make a case for their Dry Dr. At least this AFCON kept you assholes to mute for a while.
A local coach of ivory coast did it. Foreign coaches are drain pipes of Forex. Use your own local coaches not necessarily Amuneke. We have coaches of Nigerian extraction scattered all over the globe who will be willing to come and transform our national teams. Give them s chance and good conditions of service. Enough of this foreign coach thing. Even Waldrum should be allowed to go after his recent contract runs out the and a quality female coach hired for the team. Quality local content should be the driving force going forward
We are Afcon silver medalists, but to be honest the only match we won comfortably and convincingly was the R16 vs Cameroun.
Im the QF, we huffed and puffed to scrape past Angolan and were only lucky to go past South Africa.
Very appealing playing negative, park the bus football against African opponents (what would happen against European and South American teams). 30% possession on average. We don’t deserve to be Afcon winners. And as Amuneke said above, some players were not properly utilized, were overworked, and the result is there for all to see.
Please give the job to Amuneke and Finidi. They have pedigree and they’ll do wonders.
Paseiro can now go to Zamalek. We thank him.
@Kel… Where were your strikers all-tournament? Osimhen needs to go back and improve his finishing and general maturity on the pitch, sometimes I feel the way he complains with a lot of animated gestures… showing anger and despair, putting hands on the head is not very classy. He needs to apply a lot of maturity to his game and improve his heading ability most which were often off-target throughout the competition. As Nigerians… We should also know Osimhen is not the finished product yet and others strikers need to be trusted and also given good gametime to show what they are capable of doing.
*I meant to say “very appalling” up there.
@JimmyBall, to be honest, Osimhen’s and Nwabali’s needless anger and demonstrations in the final was disappointing and could have easily unbalanced their play that day. Both of them unsurprisingly had a day to forget.
As a Nigerian, I was happy Osimhen won the APOTY, but will he be able to retain it this year? I’d say doubtful.
But don’t you also think Paseiro’s negative, ultra-defensive tactics eventually drained all the players when it mattered the most? Osimhen combining offensive and defensive roles and rendered ineffective as the lone man upfront – 3 jobs at once. Aina too was tired, same with Zaidu, and Nwabali’s 5 man-wall was worn and breached twice. Chuwkwueze was missing in action. Iwobi was overwhelmed. Onyeka was overworked. Like Osimhen, Lookman didn’t get any reasonable service.
Everyone was lost on the day they were supposed to come with the A game. Maybe Boniface, Awoniyi, and Ndidi would have made some difference.
Osimhen didn’t keep a cool head, but I’ll lay a good part of the blame on the coach’s tactics. Osimhen was frustrated (not excusing him though). I mean playing 42% against South Africa almost felt like a defeat or a lucky win. And then Paseiro made it worse with 33% in the final against an African opponent. So embarrassing. Clearly the instruction was score one in the first half and defend for 45 minutes.
sadly for him, CIV was prepared for his predictable tactic. He should go.
*remonstrations*
And what would that pedigree be, if you do not mind? With his negative football, how many clear chances were created, and how many were converted?
Do you know how mentally disturbing it is to play against a team that would be difficult to breach the moment they go ahead of you?
Do you know the thought of getting a goal ahead of Nigeria forced most of our opponents into committing errors?
In Afcon, we score more first-half goals than most of the participating 24 teams.
Should Frank Kessie have stayed on the pitch after an obvious foul?
should Zaidu, a left full-back who should be manning the post have left his role to defend an Ariel ball belatedly, for the equalizer?
If JP’s style of play got us this far, it can get us farther.
Another tribal warrior want eagles job lol, coaching is not by shouting or doing gra gra, go and coach Abia warrior first. Siaone is the only local coach that I can trust for now. We need better scouting system, Eguaveon, Bassey, Sanusi and other thieves in technical committee are just bunch of jokers we went to a major tournament with one solid midfielder, Ivory Coast has 8 midfielders, even Sangare was benched. Let’s learn from our mistakes and get better, pls Amuneke is not the solution.
True talk Kel. I also think Peseiro should go. The results blinded us to the reality of the ultra defensive style of play by our team, which was counter productive to some of our players, Iwobi, Osimhen etc. Let me rather put it this way, Peseiro should have been adjusting his formation based on the team before you. Also, his poor man management of the quality players he had was very glaring. The Ivory Coast coach said that they saw that our players were tired, and so urged their players to take advantage. Maybe Peseiro thought he had robots not humans as players. It was very clear that they were tired in the match against South Africa. What kind of a coach goes into a final to defend for 90 minutes hoping only on counter attacks and set pieces? One who is not confident of his abilities, and coach Peseiro fits that.
Jose Peseiro committed serious technical malpractice in this tournament. That defensive style of play was only excusable if we had won the tournament. Its ok to be pragmatic, but 42% possession against South Africa and about 36% possession against Ivory Coast – as in against African Opposition is bad abeg. Make we talk true.
And this man mismanaged the squad badly – as in terrible mismanagement. He overworked the core of his first team, during the group phase of the tournament and especially in the match against Cameroun; and he kept using the same players who were clearly tired against Angola and South Africa, while ignoring the rest of the squad. We reaped the fruits of his mismanagement in the final. Nobody should even blame those players.
When you add this to the way he has handled the ongoing World Cup qualifiers, I’d say we should just say our good byes and wish him luck in Zamalek; while we find someone else for this team.
Its easy to dismiss Amunike because he does not look like what we need and he has failed to cut it outside the country; but guys its actually not easy to find good work in Europe or the US on the back of your Nigerian experience – even when in some cases you have the certifications their own people don’t have. So let him interview for the job alongside the foreigners who will undoubtedly apply if the position is made available. Everyone should be judged on their merits.
My brother, the problem wasn’t the 36% Nigerian possession but how poorly we managed that limited possession with wayward long passes, predictable or blocked crosses, easy-to-intercept short passes and through passes to Osihmen that were cut off.
We should have passed sideways, draw fouls and only attempt long balls which hold a high degree success rate of connection.
I don’t like negative football but i will not complain if it wins me the trophy if implemented properly.
Negative football was implemented poorly against Ivory Coast and we lost.
Again, negative football didn’t lose us the match, poorly executed negative football, particularly after Nigeria’s first goal, did.
Give Super Eagles now to Emmanuel Amunike and Samson Siasia.They could invite Mike Emenalo too to facilitarte prompt release of our foreign based players.
To give us a team that will dreaded and respected any day and any where.
Add Vincent Enyeama as the goal keeper trainer.
Kel,
Do you remember when you read “between the lines” of one of my posts when you said I sounded as if I will settle for Silver. And you said you were comfortable of a win!
Now you denounce negative football with the Cameroon victory being the most comfortable.
Lol!
Anyways,I am not advocating for Peseiro to be dropped but you (who were confident in his Gold Winning abilities) would rather he steps aside.
Haha!
Make up your mind my wonderful brother.
He can’t be good before Ivory Coast and then be bad immediately afterwards! That level of consistency is only rivalled by Samuel Chukwueze’s performance.
Negative or Positive football, Peseiro took us to where we belong, an Afcon final.
He bettered the Afcon record of Rohr and Eguavoen. From 3rd to R16 and now 2nd, yet he is not good enough.
You know I have gone back to watch the final against Ivory Coast, it is not negative football that lost us the match but chronic inability to string incisive passes together when we did have the ball. That single most important factor caused us the match.
With negative football, we weaved passes together with limited possession in prior games. Against Ivory Coast, over reliable on aimless long balls, useless through passes and meaningless crosses really killed us. Plus the rubbish introduction of Iheanacho. If you want to be ultra negative, why not see it to the last by introducing Osayi-Samuel and Onyemaechi to kuku kill off chances of crosses being whipped into our box 18?
On another day, that negative football – if managed well – would have defeated Ivory Coast in an ugly manner with boring football. But that was Peseiro’s strategy after the first game: use boring unattractive football to lift the trophy. But on the night against Ivory Coast, poor games management within a negative football strategy killed the team, not the negative strategy in itself but how it was poorly managed particularly after we got the crucial first goal!
We have had two years to assess Peseiro, and honestly, most people were waiting for him to disgrace himself at AFCON and leave the job. He claimed to be a tactician and we have experienced the full gamut of his tactical armory. It is very unlikely that after two years and one major tournament, he has anything more to offer.
He has not repaired any of the problems he inherited (like an underpowered midfield), nor has he evolved the team by introducing new talent. In fact, he has been cautious and conservative with player selections.
Personally, I can’t even trust Nigerian administrators to appoint a competent overseas coach without corrupt forex practices being involved.
I do not support the two-coach or three-coach idea bandied by some fans. Coaching a NT is a position of sole responsibility and decision-making.
Whomsoever is appointed I hope it’ll be someone with a pattern of play emphasizing the midfield and playing through the middle for at least tactical variation, as well as someone who is prepared to try out emerging talent not invite them and leave them on the bench.
There are too many players who don’t deserve to be in the team but are constantly invited. Peseiro did nothing but uncritically recycle the same players, at least to his credit Rohr was quick to scout and introduce new players.
I vote that Peseiro should go!
The last three AFCON has being won by African coaches. Maybe its time to try Amunike/Finidi combo. Just fire that Peseiro guy already. Amunike will do better with the array of talents we have.
How could sack someone who got you to the final? Look, there’s no 100 percent coach. The Senegalese also couldn’t defeat the Ivorians.
Now, the coach has seen the problems in the team and he is going to fix them. Whether we played defensive or not, we got to the final and we’re unlucky not to take the match to the extra. Kelechi’s shot would have gone in if it wasn’t blocked. Amunike cannot coach the Super Eagles successfully. The only coach that can do so in Siasia.
Amuneke has nothing to back-up his resume if he really has one. Finidi can still boast on winning the league.
Amuneke should go prove himself with Abia Warrriors or Enugu Rangers before he can be considered.
Pesseiro has done really well under the circumstances he found himself.
May be if Osimhen had not left his scoring boots in Napoli, Pesseiro would have focused on the attacking play which was his first option.
According to a commentary, Osimhen was only able to convert 4 out of 22 chances. This is not to condemn Osi because he was one of the top performers in the team which I put in this order
Nwabali, Onyeka, Ekong, Lookman, Aina, Osimhen, Bassey, Ajayi, Simon, Yusuf, and Omeruo.
Of the 25 players taken to the tournament only 10 showed showed up. Pesseiro should start looking at the remaining 15..
With the return of Okoye, Ndidi, Tella, Awo, and Boni, the team will carry more threat.
Not forgetting Ogbu, Ifeanyi, Adarabioyo, Osho, The two Dele Bashirus, Folorunsho, the boy in Esperence and Daga.
The nff needs to get back on Olise cade. That dude can bolster the team.
Peseiro can not get us the world cup ticket. He us not that just good. We should not be clouded by the achievement of Cup of Nations , what he did was to pack the bus which works well for any average team . This is what Morocco did at the world cup and they got to the semi final. Till today the most ranked African Team is the super eagles yet we only managed to get to the second round.
Let’s look for a coach with sound resume that can play to the strength of this Eagles offensively. Was reading an online sport news that not less than 4 Foreign born players from the premiership are eager to switch Nationality. We still have like 3 playing in Seria A that have not been cap at any level. This is the time to go after them so that players like iwobi, Aribo,can honorably retire.
Retain Peseiro and advise him to dump negative football. Weed inefficient player. Continuity. We can’t start afresh each time.
Perhaps this might work. But if he loses the WC ticket with a different formation and tactic, he would say it was forced on him.
I love the fluid and fast movement on the counter of Paseiro’s Eagles, but that negative football is just off. If NFF should retain him, he must change or learn to alternate his tactics.
I know many Nigerians hate to hear the truth, but I will never stop feeding you people undiluted truth.
Can’t we learn from Ivory Coast a bit, ba? What did coach Paseiro do to improve the Super Eagles?
Did he do something spectacular that we have to retain him?
Nobody trusted the coach before the Afcon, and now we have seen what he can do as a coach.
The coach has tried his best just like Oga Rohr, but I am deeply sorry. He is not good enough to coach Super Eagles.
For example, the coach made Osimhen and other players overworked themselves when other players were sitting on the bench.
The gaffer made Aina look 1useless against Ivory Coast in the final while Zaidu did not deserve to make the final squad to Ivory Coast when we had Bruno.
We asked the coach to take Nwakali with him to Ivory Coast, but he did not listen. Iwobi is not a natural midfielder but a winger converted to a midfielder in the Super Eagles. The midfield was nowhere to be found against the Ivory Coast.
There were so many things that the gaffer did wrong.
Fellow Nigerians, again, let welcome Amunike to the Super Eagles, and I believe he can take us to the promised land. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Point of correction Iwobi is not a winger, when wenger promoted him to the senior team at Arsenal he shown like a million stars as a false 9 but came the present coach of Aston villa to replace wenger, he was the one that moved iwobi to the wings to create space for his fellow french man to play behind Aubamiyang, then rohr did same at the National team, infact, he moved him to the wings at the World cup proper, it was in our first match against croatia. It took a while for Iwobi to get used to playing at the wings. The only thing that was wrong with his positioning in Ivory coast was that he was made to play too deep