Cyriel Dessers was on target for Rangers who held Olympiacos to a 1-1 draw in Greece, in the Europa League.
The goal means Dessers has now scored nine goals in all competitions for the Scottish giants this season.
Ayoub El Kaabi put Olympiacos ahead in the 56th minute before Dessers drew Rangers level on 64 minutes.
Former Super Eagles defender Leon Balogun did not feature for Rangers as he was an unused substitute.
Rangers now seat in ninth place on seven points after four games courtesy of the draw with Olympiacos.
Meanwhile, other Europa League games saw Galatasaray defeat Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 with Victor Osimhen bagging a brace, Frankfurt pipped Slavia Prague 1-0, Nice and Twente settled for a 2-2 draw, Braga held Elfsborg to a 1-1 draw and Athletic Bilbao edged Ludogorets 2-1.
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Just like in 2021, it seems Eguavoen needs to go watch Dessers live in Europe before Dessers’ name can feature in any of his list of invited players
This is what we gets when an unmeritocratic coach like Eguaveon heads our national team. Calling up Umar and Ihenacho over Dessers speaks much about the tactical ineptitude of our current coaching crew. It’s never a coincidence this usually happens with indigenous coaches. Tueh!
It’s a disgrace in 2024 when most people have digital access to monitor players and know who is in form and who is not……Local Nigerian coaches will always show their true color at one point….
Dessers 8 goals in 13 matches – Sodiq Umar – 0 goals always on the bench
Arokodare 8 goals in 11 games – Iheanacho bench warmer and only scored against a 5th tier team in the spanish cup
Akpogunma – Ever present for hoffenheim
Chuba Akpom – 6 goals
These football people are just fruads and ethnic fools.
Not to forget Jordan Torunarigha and Ibrahim Buhari who are both CBs and played in the UEL today as they have been doing regularly. I also saw Felix Udokhai featuring for Besiktas yesterday, but it is their 3rd division Tanimu (and the next homebased player) whom they want to market to the world that is their priority at the moment.
The day Nigerians wake up to understand that these local coaches are the cogs in the wheels of progress of our football, that day will be the beginning of our renaissance.
Can you imagine? These analogue football administrators can’t keep up with modern day football administration…They are just too backward and very corrupt.
was he selected during the era of foreign coach, his time will soon come who tells you he can’t be inside the plane to Morocco next year
Google is your friend….!
This guy doesn’t even deserve a reply…….Did you watch Peseiro’s first game…. A friendly against Mexico?
We blame foreign players for being reluctant to play for us…Do you think any professional playing in a respectable league won’t be pissed that some bench warmer is getting a nod ahead of him?
Eguavoen seems to pick players by what he knows they can do (abilities)either through working with these players in the past or observing them from him days as technical director.
Another observation I have noticed,players who plays in smaller leagues especially where we have options are not given priorities because most of these players scoring in Belgium,Scotland ect may struggle to score just one goal in the top 5 European leagues,for example Paul Onuachu who has struggle to find his feat in England after painting Belgium and Turkey red with goals..But can’t find his scoring boots in the premiership.Josh Maja too have struggled in the elite league.
This are not my opinion rather analysing the reasons behind some players not invited despite their form in Europe and the likely reasons..
Eguavoen will therefore stick with players in the top European leagues who he believes are way better and experienced at international level despite their poor form.Players like Akpoguma who have repeatedly underperformed in the super eagles colour may also not get a chance under Eguavoen because the coach don’t trust him enough based on his poor record with the super eagles.Dessers too was not good enough with the previous coaches playing in Scotland may have compounded his situation..
How many goals have Umar and Iheanacho scored in La Liga….??
Dessers is not an upstart, neither is he a novice.
He was 1-time top scorer in the dutch league, the maiden top scorer of the UEFA Conference League and has just scored his 9th goal IN ALL COMPETITIONS.
It was this same Egauvoen who claimed he didnt know dessers and needed to go watch him live when the boy was the hottest Nigerian striker in Europe in 2021, but smuggled injured Olisah Ndah from South African league and his arrogant for nothing son Kelechi Nwakali from the Spanish 3rd division or so into the AFCON final squad by the back door, despite both players not being originally listed in the provisional squad submitted to CAF.
Eguavoen is just a blatant fraud. Period. And I’ll say it to his face the day I get the opportunity to meet him one-on-one
Eguaveon is an error. I heard the NFF are still chopping for foreign coach. We may be hopeful.
Umar is not even playing let alone scoring..His invitation is strange..Probably,the gaffer may have looked back at the time they worked together(afcon)and thinks he could do with a player of immense quality but the Sadiq then was hot,though some players are built for international football despite low productivity at club level,may turnout a gem for their country,let’s hope that’s the case for senior man Iheanacho and Sadiq respectively..
To even think his fraudiola Eguaveon once said he allows interference in his list to please powers that be is a testament that we are in failed hands. Eguaveon will win us nothing. We need to send him out of the system finally! Not a coach. Not a Technical Director!
This is exactly why so many of us have lost faith in local coaches taking charge of the Super Eagles. It’s like a tragic tradition: once they’re handed the keys, suddenly players with no recent goals, little playing time, or questionable form start magically appearing in the list.
What’s Sodiq Umar doing in that list? He’s been on a goal drought that would make the Sahara proud, yet somehow he gets the nod over Cyriel Dessers, who’s scoring left, right, and center in Scotland. And then there are established defenders like Torunarigha, Udokhai, and Akpoguma—all tested at top levels in Europe—left to watch from the sidelines while local or lower-league players get called up. You have to ask, is this really a football decision, or something else entirely?
It’s becoming almost comical. In England, there’s a rigorous standard for the national team selection. You have to earn your spot, week in and week out. Here? It sometimes feels like being “in favour” is more important than being in form. Is it regional politics? Agents at work? Or maybe a certain “quota” that just *must* be filled? Whatever it is, it’s costing us dearly.
This isn’t just a small mistake here and there—it’s a pattern with our local coaches, and it always seems to end the same way: a promising start, followed by baffling selection decisions, then a slow decline in performance. It’s not just frustrating; it’s sabotaging any progress we could be making.
And where’s the NFF in all of this? They should be setting clear standards for selection, ensuring that only the best make the team. But instead, we’re left guessing if these lineups are chosen by merit or by something else entirely. The NFF talks big about wanting the best for Nigerian football, yet allows this kind of circus to go on unchecked.
If Eguavoen wants to go down in history as something other than another cautionary tale, he needs to resist this “tradition.” And the NFF? It’s time for them to stop turning a blind eye. Nigerian football has world-class talent—talent that could elevate our standing on the global stage. But if we keep up this merry-go-round of favoritism and questionable calls, we’re only shooting ourselves in the foot, over and over again.
I don’t want to waste my time on Nigeria Football anymore because NFF and Eguavoen don’t care for us but for their pockets.
One thing is sure if Eguavoen stays. Nigeria may fail again not to qualify for the World Cup.
Eguavoen should not be near our national team. He’s overstayed. Nigeria Football is degrading, and if care is not taken, Eguavoen will sink the Super Eagles soon.
What did Dessers do to Eguavoen Ganna?
NFF will never hire a foreign coach. Rather, they will keep cajoling Nigerians until Eguavoen fails, and they will start all over again.
Drey and others have said it all. Oshimen, Dessers, Sholankę and Lookman scored beautiful goals this week but why the likes of Dessers, Akpom, Arokodare and other new faces may not feature for Nigeria under Eguavoen?
The answer is quite simple. Corruption. Eguavoen loves brown envelopes, and if you can’t bribe your way in, you can play in the Super Eagles.
Nigeria is bigger than NFF and Eguavoen. Enough of this. If Nigeria must qualify for the World Cup, Eguavoen should be chased out of our football.
I thought Eguavoen was trustworthy before but not until he showed his true face. I backed out immediately when I discovered that Eguavoen was not sincere with us.
This is why I preferred Siasia to Eguavoen. Umar Sodiq has been chosen over Dessers? It is a pity. Fingers crossed. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Expecting Eguavoen to invite certain players is proving to be a hiding-to-nothing.
In fairness to Eguavoen, all national team coaches have their favorites regardless of how productive these players are in their clubs, so long as they are fit. So the tendency to go against the grain of picking better performing players for national team assignments is quaquaversal in international coaching landscape.
Iheanacho is slowly working his way back to optimum and peak performance. Umar has clocked many minutes in the league but both are still goals shy. But Eguavoen believes he can unlock their scoring proficiency for the Super Eagles.
Boniface is a top quality centre forward who just needs to be positioned correctly in the Super Eagles to produce outputs analogous to those in his club.
In total, I think Eguavoen’s list of strikers/wingers this time around is a scatter-gun assemblage which, in truth, doesn’t strike all my acceptability targets in its sight but it takes down enough for me to label it as satisfactory.
You have heavy hitters like Lookman and Simon who will serve as foils to the irrepresible Osihmen (who continues to cut a wide swath for Galastaray this season across competitions) with the likes of Umar and Iheanacho playing negligible roles. Hopefully the stars will soon start to align for Boniface.
I don’t think Eguavoen likes the attacking profile of Dessers when you juxtapose it against that of Umar or Iheanacho. He has worked with the latter duo and knows how to get the attacking tuning-fork of their brains to vibrate goals and produce the goods in Super Eagles colours.
I personally think NFF have blacklisted Chuba Akpom for dragging his feet before jumping on the Super Eagles bandwagon of available options. Josh Maja may get a look-in so also Arokodare even they continue to bleed ruthlessness in front of goal for their clubs.
Any hopes of seeing the likes of Akpoguma feature under Eguavoen have to defenestrated. Only Eguavoen can answer why he continuously gives the consideration of certain players a wide berth. But my sense is that he feels their skill do not stick-the-landing of what he requires to bring his formation alive and philosophy to bear successfully.
I guess, on a lighter note, when you only need 1 goaless draw across 2 matches to seal the deal, inviting toothless Iheanacho and Umar makes sense at some level. 🙂
deo – yuh made sense ojare, but pipo must still tink about the WCQ abi I lie??
I mysel ( a adapted abi na adopted nigreain) am not for desserts at al, and yuh har right, sodiq is a regular strating for his club, is only iheanacsho dat am not sure y eguaveon alway invite, dat wn needed investigation, and again las las, we must need to tinking about the world cup na and al dis toothless headless chicken must be avoided, because wunu al sabi how my former pipo the jealous ghanians stay, if wunu nor qualified for WC dem go bring out den disrespect again and dust up den name for wunu supper eagles and start try de called wunu super chickens again lmaaoo!
Some comments are just so ridiculous. so you want Eguavoen to be doing trial and error. When Boniface was busy painting the german league red, same fans kept calling for his inclusion in the national team. What has he done so far in 5 games, Suddenly you want us to go that route again. Just like Deo stated, the coach is only inviting players on their abilities and what they can offer.
Desser that played against mali and still some fools want him back,if he likes let him score hundred goals he can’t play Africa style,I have closely observed him and some players, they can’t fit in, even our Boniface is still struggling to fit in