Former Nigeria international Ifeanyi Udeze has said the Super Eagles’ home matches should be moved from the Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo.
The Super Eagles continued their poor run in Uyo following their 1-1 draw with Zimbabwe, in Tuesday’s Group C, 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
It was the team’s third consecutive draw in Uyo in the World Cup qualifiers after stalemates with Lesotho (1-1) and South Africa (1-1).
Also in their final group game against Rwanda in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, the Super Eagles lost 2-1.
“I think we should consider another stadium because we’ve been drawing too many matches at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, let’s fix other stadiums so that they can also play there,” Udeze said on Brila FM.
“For example in the Nigerian league when clubs go to another ground you will realise they struggle to win because it is not their home ground.
“So I agree with those calling for a change of stadium because like I said the draws at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium is too much.”
The Godswill Akpabio Stadium is the only approved home ground for all of Super Eagles’ international matches.
The stadium hosted the team’s home matches during the qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
By James Agberebi
21 Comments
It’s unfortunate.
The Nest of Champions should perhaps be renamed the “Banana Skin” or “Stumbling Block”.
A lovely stadium, world class in every respect. But for whatever reason, we keep struggling there.
Moving our matches to another location may be a solution. But personnel changes I think is something Chelle needs to seriously consider as well.
If we still have a chance to qualify for the world cup, we need a team that will go over there and not put us to shame. We don’t want to be the next Zaire. In 1974, Zaire went to the world cup TO COLLECT.
The thrashing they received is something of a cautionary tale, especially that 9 nil hammering they experienced at the hands of Yugoslavia. If we somehow manage to qualify for the world cup, imagine the team that played Zimbabwe lining up against Spain, France, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Germany? Hmmm. Are we really ready to sit in front of our TVs and watch Nigeria get stripped naked at the world cup? We seriously need to think about this. What is worth doing is worth doing well. I don’t just want to qualify for the world cup, only to go and get smashed. I want us to go there and match or even surpass Morocco’s record, which is getting to the semi final or better. If we are going there to collect, I prefer for us not to qualify! The initial disappointment of not qualifying is better than going to the world cup to lose scandalously.
Chelle should now please cast his net far and wide and start scouting players. We need a deep squad. If Osimhen for instance has to come off, we need players that can come in and Osimhen won’t be missed. We need good subs for every department in the team. Subs we can count on, not passengers and freeloaders.
Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work.
ROHR QUALIFIED US WITH EASE BEATING CAMEROUN, ALGERIA, ZAMBIA IN THIS STADIUM.
I DON`T WANT TO MENTION THE AFCON MATCHES.
LET`S STOP PUTING BLAMES ON THE PITCH WHEN WE ALL KNOW THE NONSENSE NFF IS DOING….
INVITING PAPA DANIEL OVER OYEKA THAT COULD HAVE HELPED WHEN NDIDI WAS COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED…..
INVITING YUSUF HASAN OVER BASHIRU THAT PLAYED THE LAST GAME BEFORE INTERNATIONAL BREAK FOR LAZIO…..
WHY WAS SODIQ EVEN INVITED OVER DESSERS?
IF THERE WAS BASHIRU AND ONYEKA IN THE TEAM WILL THE COACH THING OF PLAYING CHUKWUEZE AND LOOKMAN OUT OF POSITION?
FORCING PLAYERS THAT ARE INACTIVE ON A COACH AND EXPECTING MIRACLE, WHEN IT DOESN`T COME WE START SHIFTING BLAMES ON THE PITCH…..NONSENSE
FINALLY, SOME PLAYERS NEED TO DROPPED FROM SUPER EAGLES….
NDIDI IS COMPLETELY NO LONGER SUPER EAGLES MATERIAL…. WE LOST TO BENIN REP. BECAUSE OF HIM LAST YEAR….GO AND WATCH THE REPLAY OF THAT MATCH….
THERE`S THIS GUY THAT PLAYS FOR EVERTON IN EPE WEEK IN WEEK OUT…. IREOGBUNAM…
THIS IS THE KIND OF MIDFIELDER WE NEED IN SUPER EAGLES NOT DEAD WOODS LIKE PAPA DANIEL AND YUSUF…
LET ME REST MY CASE HERE….
***SHALOM***
There’s nothing wrong with uyo stadium, The lads did their best on the day
They started the qualifiers very poor for this reason
The pressure to win all the matches was just too immense, during the days of Gernot rohr he always start the qualifiers from the onset
Eagles were just sleeping and loosing points.
I think the coach need time he will come good.
Hahahahaha….UBFE and Taiwo….how dare you mention Gernot Rohr in your comments….LMAOoo. Dont you know that name is forbidden…???!
A bad workman will always blame his tools.
A stadium that was some sort of slaughter slab under a PE teacher has suddenly become the reason why the SE has only won 1 WCQ in 3 years…..LMAoooo
The way he started the qualifiers for 2018 world cup was lit, after the defeat to zambia at home, he just hold on to that momentum till we qualified
Gernot rohr is a very serious coach, our eagles lost too many points, hopefully is not late fingers cross
Stadium is not the problem.our boys are not comited players like ndidi.iwobi.chukwueze.Aina. ekong.should give way to serious players to come in. Aina was playing as if he was in training the new coach should look for players we have boys that can do better.sadiq from remo stars can play better than aina in the right full back.ogbu can do better than ekong. Majority of the players are overated
UBFE, you’re on point.
This is the same stadium that Rohr destroyed Broos in, this same Broos that is now sitting pretty on top of our group. Rohr routinely qualifief us for tournaments left, right and center, with games to spare. Chai, those were good days! Now, see where NFF ineptitude has landed us. SMH.
I can’t believe that people are now praising the Gernet Rohr era. When Elder Odegbami and his gang in conjunction with Oga Dare the former sports minister called a dog a bad name in order to hang it, some of us criticized that move but the majority wanted Rohr out, and the result is what we are seeing today.
Ever since Rohr was fired the Super Eagles are yet to recover till this day. Even Peseiro had to change to Rohr’s perceived boring tactics of playing a three man defense at the detriment of his attack before he started getting results. If Peseiro had been compelled to stay, he would have continued his boring 3 4 3 approach and we won’t be in this mess today.
The man Rohr understood the weaknesses of our team and created a structure to manage the weaknesses and kept getting results, but some people who felt they knew better wanted entertaining football. We sure have the entertainment we so desire now.
Can you all rest with this Rohr this and that once and for all? So are we now asking the NFF to call him back? It’s more than 3yrs already and he has moved on with his life, you all making it seems like we won AFCON and WC combined under him for more than 5yrs before the NFF fired him.
Guys… I want you all to have a frontal view of the goalscoring opportunity missed by Wilfred Ndidi. The evident best team player of the AFCON was Frank Onyeka whom I used to criticize a lot prior to AFCON but he did a job so good to clear my doubts with his turbo-charged workrate. Post AFCON, one will think Frank Onyeka will become the fulcrum of the team… but once Ndidi got back to fitness, he was brought again to surplant Onyeka… just look at the miss by Ndidi… what a shame!!!
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/VkRt2n0KoiE
This is his current levels… folks will say he did a great job other than the miss… I agree but the miss rubbishes eveeything great he did in the match. Iwobi, Ndidi should make way for Bashiru and Onyeka going forward… Onyeka has to be in any midfield combo Super Eagles wishes to adopt.
@JimmyBall, everyone kept blaming Ekong for the last-minute equalizer cos he was the last man before the goalkeeper, but it was this same Ndidi that was practically escorting Chirewa to the goal. The same slouch and lazy “defending” he does at Leicester.
He was the cause of that goal after throwing away a golden chance to go 2-0 up.
Ndidi didn’t play at Afcon and the Super Eagles were solid. If he was there, we would be out by QF cos the coach would give the hardworking Onyeka’s role to him.
He’s probably the only Nigerian midfielder you can almost best will hardly score. Frank would never miss that sitter. Even newbie Onyedika has scored. Bashiru has. Iwobi. All. All Ndidi’s attempt go to the stands.
This coach should have the courage to drop Ndidi and Chukwueze, just as he’s done with Kelechi.
So the name have change change to ndidi and not iwobi again right? Blame blame and blame, 4/6 is never a woeful result by a new coach, we shd allow him to do his work, we asked the NFF to give the coach free hand to operate and choose his prefer players for his tactics, yet we the fans won’t allow him do same, how that’s not been hypocritical beats my imagination, are we now suppose to be changing coach like we changing baby diaper?
Kel,
I have had opportunity to watch the match again and, yes, the late goal against Zimbabwe wasn’t just Ekong s fault.
Just before the sequence of play that led to that goal, the Super Eagles lost possession twice carelessly.
To make matters worse, Zimbabwe worked the ball all the way from their own box 18 into the heart of our own box 18 to score – very, very poor on the part of the entire Super Eagles.
The right winger was easily bypassed, the right midfielder was easily bypassed, the right fullback was easily bypassed, Ndidi was then caught ball-watching and Ekong was slow to react with Nwabili not intercepting quick enough.
It was a function of how the Super Eagles approached the match from the start. Unlike the match against Rwanda when the filed out with a compact and constricted mindset, here they were wide and expansive from the start.
Unfortunately, after achieving their objective with the 1 late goal, instead of shutting-up shop, shelling up, recoiling and going compact, they wanted to go for the jugular with a kiss of death second goal – big mistake!
They only ended up being hoisted-by-their-petard because they lacked the legs, lungs and statima at that stage to bring enough intensity to bear in producing a second goal.
Lack of intensity in their tackling just made it all too easy for Zimbabwe to carry the ball (unchallenged) all the way from their own box 18 into Nigeria’s net. Look at the goal: the Zimbabwean could have gone through Nwabili to followed the ball into the net.
Hindsight is 20-20. There is nothing wrong going for the killer insurance second goal. Next time, just make sure you have enough petrol in the tank to pull it off!
You’re spot on @deo!
Exactly deo.
Omeruo insinuated this same issue in a recent interview on Channels or Arise TV about players not giving 100% because they know they always get invitations as long as they’re not injured.
Why are players like Ndidi and Chukwueze only dropped when they’re injured?? As soon as they recover from an injury, boom, they get an IV.
Only players like Osimhen that play and even defend with all his heat deserve that special treatment. Musa was another 100% committed player. Same as Ighalo and Mikel.
And the SE played straight into the game plan of Zimbabwe’s coach. Having watched the home loses Nigeria suffered with Guinea Bissau, CAR, and recently with Rwanda, these guys have discovered Nigeria’s number.
And what is that? Frustrate the SE for 80 minutes by parking the bus. With 10 minutes to go, the Nigerian bench, wanting to desperately win at home to justify their “big team” status and impress the hone crowd, will throw in more attackers.
So rather than preserve any slim advantage, they want to expand it to a more “respectable” result befitting a “big team” as the Nigerian journalists tag them and boast about at the pre-match press conference.
And that’s the signal to the opposing coach to take action. He brings on fresh, hungry strikers to take on tiring Ekong and co. At this time, Ndidi only intercepts frontal attacks. Any other types of attacks, he just strolls with the ball, hoping Ekong would stop it.
So rather than bring in Bruno, Osagie and co and changing to a defensive formation, we throw in half-committed players like Boniface who’s not bothered
about defending.
In the blink of an eye, the damage is done and there’s no time to recover.
It is extremely frustrating being a super eagles fan because we never learn our lessons. That last goal had Ekong’s name written on it. I would not even blame the goal keeper because he did not expect his last line of defence to be beaten so easily and that explains why he was late in reading the danger.
Some fans have even shifted the blame to Ndidi, ignoring the big elephant in the room which is Ekong. Don’t get me wrong, I like him as a leader, he speaks quite articulately and knows how to say the right things but playing him in a back 4 is a disaster that will always happen. Some fan even mentioned that we should stop playing our matches in Uyo because we don’t get results there. Another will say we should stop wearing white Jersey because we do not win in that colour. All sorts of superstitions and sentiments devoid of sound logic. No wonder we keep falling short. I am yet to see a boxer that said he lost a boxing match because he wore white trunks, totally absurd!
The problem of this team is not a mystery but rather glaringly obvious. The best players do NOT play nor are they invited to the team. Prior to this match I had stated that Ekong should sit this one out because we needed all 6 points and we had to attack. I stressed that Ekong only does well in a back 5 but my warning was not heeded and voila, here we are! It has been obvious for some time that the team needs an attacking midfielder but the NFF have not done anything in that regard. They should also forget Nwaneri because there is no way England will allow such a talent to go. They should focus on Noah adedeji , gift orban and possibly chukwuemeka of dortmund for the attacking midfield role. Ogbu , bassey, and the auxere player should feature more prominently. Increase options in the left back position by inviting Felix agu. Fix the goal keeping position by inviting arthur okonkwo, atubolu, goodman etc. Let us get serious and stop playing to the gallery with all these sentiments and maybe then we will stop using our calculators and hoping for FIFA to lend us a helping hand.
I am absolutely certain that some players must’ve played their last game for Nigeria in this window.
The only place I will blame the coach is not identifying the weakness of his defense towards the end of the game.
Bringing in Boniface for Osimhen when we should’ve preserved the lead was a disaster.
Anyway hope still Dey as SA will surely forfeit 3 points. We continue to fight till the end. Worst case scenario be among the 4 best second placed teams.
Other than that I give Chelle a B+ as he did better than his predecessors in this qualifiers. 4 points out of a possible 6 is commendable.
If we had 4 points in our previous qualifiers windows we would’ve been on 12 points by now. Alas the NFF dragged giving us a better coach after Peseiro left.
It’s obvious that Ekong is not comfortable in a back four. He should’ve introduced Ogbu to shore up the right side of defense. Remove Osayi who was a shadow of himself on the right side. Bruno to left and revert Aina to the right side.
I believe he has seen the deficiencies of his team as it’s the first time he ever had them together and it was during a crucial WorldCup qualifiers window.
NFF na una do this one o.
Looool, calling Rorh’s name is really sickening, someone that Benin is looking to bundle out soon. Same Rorh that beat broos and can’t beat him again. You all better pray SA is deducted 3 points. If not just kiss the World cup goodbye. Don’t know when you will start apportioning blames to the players. This are the same set of players that started the campaign, and same mental break down. Your over-rated players are losing concentration against players playing in local league. smh
Hahahaha…..Please drop the link to where you got the news that “Benin is looking to bundle out soon”. Please do us that honour……we are waiting.
You think Benin FA and fans are as stupid as you and your own FA and sports ministry….? Benin FA will bundle out a man who has taken them back into AFCON for the first time in 6 years (and 5th time overall in their existence as a nation) and is joint 2nd (only by goal difference shy of the playoff spot) of their WCQ group above Nigeria…?
Please pass what you are smoking, let us submit it to the FDA for analysis.
We kissed the World Cup goodbye already the day your imbecile uncle couldn’t defeat Rohr on a neutral ground……LMAOoo. The mumu man got only 1 point out of 6 during his qualifying window and left us in 5th place in a 6-team group….LMAOooo…….the worst any coach has mustered in a qualification window since Rohr left……LMAOoooo
All of a sudden, the same bulk of players an ordinary mechanic like Rohr was using to make qualifications smooth sailing have become overrated and are to blame. The same stadium he made a slaughterhouse is now also the reason why we have not won any WCQ on home soil since he left almost 4 years ago………LMAooooo
Once again, pass what you are smoking for a comprehensive narcotic characterization…….LMAOoooo
Blame the coach for the drew game why because he failed to protect the lone goal score by super eagles,instead of him bringing more defender,he bring an attacker claiming he is looking for more goals,do we need goals now or points, he could have defended the lone goal and earn a three points,he blew our chance from progressing.
That was indeed a terrible miss by Ndidi. But there are 2 sides to that coin.
What I noticed was a DM who had the energy and vision to GET INTO THE BOX, but then went on to miss a glorious chance. His box to box movement is good, in my opinion. Some DMs will sit in front of their defenders like land lords, and you hardly see them venturing forward, but Ndidi showed that he is mobile. If Ndidi had not been mobile and found his way into the box, he would not have had the chance in the first place!
The miss of course is what will dwell in the subconscious of observers. Such is life. Mistakes are more easily remembered and retained in memory.
Ultimately, it’s the coach’s job to pick his squad. Ndidi and Ekong are not a sine qua non for selection. No be by force. All we need is the best of the best. A solid starting eleven, and subs that are just as good as the starters.