Ola Aina is confident the Super Eagles will put up a better showing at the next Africa Cup of Nations following their shocking exit from Cameroon 2021, Completesports.com reports.
The Super Eagles started the competition on a good note, winning all three group games against Egypt, Sudan and Guinea-Bissau.
The West Africans however stumbled in the second round going down to a 1-0 defeat against the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia.
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Aina is however upbeat the Super Eagles will come back stronger at the 2023 edition in Cote d’l voire.
“We have put the defeat against Tunisia behind us even though It was very painful,” Aina said on the eve of the team’s departure from Cameroon.
“The next edition in Ivory Coast is not far away and I think that should be our focus for now. We can’t dwell too much on the past.
“We are disappointed, the fans are disappointed, but things will be fine in future.”
By Adeboye Amosu in Garoua
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Gernot Rohr will lead Nigeria to gold at the next Afcon. All you spineless Rohr Haters, EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT.
Feel so sorry for young promising talent like Aina.. GENERAL ROHR gave his all to assemble this players and then Eguavon decided to waste their time and talent.
For me this was the best opportunity to win the 4th trophy. Talking about next Afcon? Ghana, Algeria south Africa that did not even come through will be thinking of the same thing.
Rohr does not have the midas touch to win the Nations cup. It’s a very touch and big tournament. Drobga once said it’s tougher than the world world so to win it you must be 100 percent fit, aware and focus both tactically, mentally and technically. Rohr is a good coach no doubt with good organisation but he lacks a winning mentally and match reading ability.Egu is far better than Rohr but the Referee spoil the show for us. How can NFF allow a referee from Senegal; a dubious and controversial referee for that matter officiate our match. There is no way he wouldn’t ha a been partisan cos Nigeria and senegal are rivals
At the point the referee spoilt the show for us, what was the scores?
At that point if you have forgotten, we were loosing, desperate and the fear that we were about tasting defeat, was getting stronger every passing. In fact, it was our desperation and fear of defeat that led to that incidence which elicited the red card. Because at that point, even the coach was in a state of panic and frenzy. The players played with more urgency and desperation
Egu is far better than Rohr. Ehen??? So R16 exit is far better than Third place. Hope I can see well. Aina was heavily responsible for the goal on Sunday. He often loses concentration in games. It happened against cameroon at the last Afcon and against an african opponent in one of the friendlies prior to the last world cup. No wonder Rohr didnt trust him. All the best all the same.
Something’s are there to see. Eguavoen played three games that sprung out the flair we knew the super eagles for. He took up the job in less than two months. The loss to Tunisia is not s point to conclude on.
After three years, hardly any Nigerian was convinced about Rohr’s tactical wherewithal. We played negative football. The same Rohr even recently attributed his failure to the excuse that the Super Eagles lack stars. Is that a man you want to coach you. Someone who doesn’t see the potential in the super eagles??? It’s this same super eagles most pundits say is the best team on the continent.
Shelve this Rohr talk please. The dude has no pedegree. He’s not good
He’s not good, he’s not good, yet he has never failed to hit his targets. he has never failed to qualify us for tournaments. The last time i checked he qualified for this tournament with two games to spare. he won a bronze. He was sacked in order to avert a disaster. What is more disastrous than being thrown out afcon at R 16 by a Corona-ravaged Tunisian team handled by an Assistant coach whose name most of us dont even care to know. The same Tunisian team was beaten by Rohr with their full squad at the 3rd place match. Since R16 exit is now worth celebrating, our worst performance since 1982, then i end my argument with you.
Oga. Before Rohr, we won the AFCON. Winning bronze is a normal thing for us. Qualifying for Nations cup is not an achievement. It’s bang average how you lots think.
In over three years, all you are celebrating is that he qualifies for tournaments and wins bronze. How pathetic. You aren’t even considering the fact that man struggles to win games. Football pattern was never attractive. Never any clear-cut tactics.
See… Football ain’t about sentiments. You’ve got to shelve your like for him and smell the coffee. Rohr would still have taken the SE no where if he hadn’t been sacked. Winning bronze in this AFCON would still have been a failure…
Before Rohr yes we won AFCON, but you forgot that before Rohr we couldn’t qualify for back to back AFCONS. Bronze is failure but a round of 16 exit is worth celebrating??
@DannySE, God bless you more.
Tell them. I hope they will understand your language this time around. I have been saying this almost 6 years but no changes.
For me, our own are the best if NFF are ready to choose the right local coaches. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Bronze is not an achievement but playing individual brilliant football now known as fluid football and getting knocked out by a team with better tactics at R16 is an achievement to you abi? You said it is normal to qualify for Afcon. You forgot u didn’t qualify for 2 afcons back to back before Rohr made it a normal thing to qualify for tournaments with games to spare, abi? He beat Egypt less than a month of coaching, you didn’t complain of lack of time, you refused to give Rohr credit for the team Egu inherited. When he was schooled by a weakened Tunisian team lead by an unknown asst coach it’s now clear in ur eyes that 2 months it’s not enough despite inheriting same backroom staff to whom many have given Rohrs credit to in the past. Let Egu go and play his table soccer football against Ghana, then we’ll see that we have just started.
Shut your mouth there…before you people were beaten by Tunisia ,all we were hearing was ‘we will win the cup’…. You unpatriotic players…didnt you people see d way super eagle that won the nations cup in 2013 played with their whole heart…
Especially this delivery guy, saying we should choke on our own vomit and other stuffs. Rhor followers are the real super eagles fan? You have problem o so no rhor, no super eagles?
@Abdulraheem n Ahmed is it only the players that boasted, what about the fans? They were saying “bring on anybody we will beat them we are playing the best football, every pundits in the word are praising our team, they even said Eguavon has done what Rohr could not do within few weeks”. Today they finding excuses upon excuses to defend the shambolic exit in R16 which have never happen to us in AFCON history before. Now they are defending him that he just took over the team when he has been with the team for over how many years now even he himself said he knew the players when he took over in one of his interview then. Pls what miracle will he perform now that he only have like 3 – 4 days before any match to prepare? All these people clamouring for local coach we know their intentions not because they love Nigeria football but for their selfish interest. The painful things is that we the fans will be the one bearing the pain at the end of the day though me have made up my mind anything that happens to Nigeria football doesn’t move whether good or bad. In fact I didn’t pay too much put mind in their game like that in AFCON that was why it doesn’t move me an inch when we lost to Tunisia on that night. But truth must be told our football is not been run well and some fans are making the matter worst through their tribalistic, sentimental and bias attitude.
Aina,a bird in hand is worth a million in the bush.Never joke with opportunities else you’ll always live a life of regrets.
Only a man with slave mentality would ever compared Eguafon to the clueless Rohr .
I was never a fan not Eguafon and I really don’t like him because he has same things in common with the clueless Rohr who has never won tea cup in his entire coaching career , and his disastrous outing in the 3 African countries he coached where he was dismissed in all the 3 countries under 2 years , with one was less than a year with 13% shameful records; all pointed out that for Oga Rohr to be employed at all with his shameful record showed the extent of how Amaju Pinnick in corruption, and for lasting almost 6 years and becoming the longest ever SE also proved that , Amaju Fraud-Pinnick is a gold medallist in corruption. Eguafon is a sombiee Mr Yes-Man like Oga Rohr , ready to take all manner of chit , unpaid salary without complain , having undeserved players forced on him as in the case of John Noble etc ( all these were also attributes of Oga Rohr ) ; the only edge Eguafon has over Rohr is his tactics but he talk too much , revealing his strategy
Yes , the players boast of winning Afcon and the fans too believe too because we could see great football for once and the Afcon technocrats did not only rated SE as the best in the first round but also rated Eguafon as the best coach in first round which means , Nigerian fans positive impression were also vindicated by Afcon analysts.
SE lost was due to many factors ; among which is conspiracy , ill luck ( hardly the match started, one of the great performers Senior Man was given Yello card , from that moment , he couldn’t perform his role from the middle filed with Taiwo Awoniyi from the fear of not picking second & red ; and it was too early to substitute) , undeserved red card , while turning blind eyes to our own fouls and penalty appeal , short time of 2 weeks ( Rohr had 2 solid years to prepare his SE team for last Afcon with games in hands ; what did he achieve, other than bronze and that was when we had experienced & quality players like Mikel , Igahalo at his prime , Victor Mosses , Hamed Musa , Ekong & Balogun at their prime time and Osimeh; yet Rohr team was bundled out by Algerian local coach in semifinals) ; if Rohr were to be in charge with absence of Osimeh; I can bet it , Rohr wouldn’t have gone beyond first round as Ghana.
Lastly, when Rohr was in charge with directionless and negative football with tactics his team was playing, could any normal person have expected SE to win Afcon under Rohr ?
Is it possible for Rohr to give what he doesn’t have, to use SE to break his own decades of cupless coaching career; how could Rohr who had never won a tea cup in his entire dwindling coaching career suddenly becomes Pep , Jose , Zaidan in the last stage of his directionless stay with SE ? ( those who were thinking in that direction are jokers and are suffering from slavery mentality as said by @DannySE & others
Lmao!! Mikel and Ighalo were in their prime in 2019. Remind us where Ighalo was playing at the time and which club Mikel was playing for at the time. Was it not until we decided to use the midfield trio of Ndidi Etebo and Iwobi that we begin to see balance from the knockout stage against Cameroon?? What happened when Mikel was in starting 11 against Madagascar??? You see that’s I said you’re just ranting without facts. The same Way Ighalo that plays in a Sunday Sunday league was in his prime in 2019 yet you were always crying that Rohr bench Osimhen for him at the time. Lmao!! I’ve never seen anyone so confused as you are. Keep deceiving yourself that your Egudiola is better than Rohr after round of 16 exit Lmao!!
You folks are absolutely ridiculous. Go on YouTube 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?
Even if the tactics of top coaches are on YouTube are they stuck on stupid not to tweak their tactics especially when it matters???? When we lost to CAR at home the coach still went on to tweak his formation in the return leg and got the result he needed. The fact remains that local coaches just don’t have it. The only ones that tried were Keshi Amodu and Onigbinde and you can tell that the SuperEagles was way bigger than them during their stints.
Even Siasia that some of them are saying is the most suited for the job has failed to qualify for ordinary AFCON twice. If we had beaten Tunisia we will face Burkina Faso and possibly Senegal on the way. If you notice after Tunisia scored they were sensing a favorable route to the final. I won’t be surprise if Tunisia win this cup.
You have to be the most delusional person in this world to think that the SuperEagles will not beat Burkina Faso and Senegal on the way to the final and possibly win the cup if we had a technically sound head on the bench??? Anyway I don’t blame you that’s why you’re celebrating a round of 16 exit Lmao!!!
@Rez ; what a brilliant analysis from you; I am sorry if I am too hard on Eguafon ( when I see a superior point I do admit )
Nevertheless, as I have said I was never a fan of Eguafon because of his not too impressive technical ability in the past and most importantly his Sombiee like character of Yes-Man just like in Rohr ( unfortunately that is the only character that do get the trust of NFF in alternative to the average foreign coaches like Rohr who are ready to do business with them ).
I must confess, Eguafon have really learnt from his past mistakes and improve greatly, technically; he gave us complete football in the 1st round , with his fearless and pressing game of mass attack – mass defence that we have not witnessed for long. Siasia is only Nigerian local coach that when he lost , Nigerians that know the technicality of football still rooting for him any day , because of great football and his technical ability despite working against corrupt conspiracy of NFF that do frustrate him ; yet many times Siasia would do impossibility as in U20 WC Mikel team , Olympic 1st time and 2nd times without salary
For a team that did not played a single grade a friendly match , no preparation, taken over less than 2 weeks, only have 4 training sessions ahead of a big tournament as Afcon !! , with the best player goal getter Osimeh out , the reliable main stream defence Balogun also out , and with unfortunate wicked act from Amaju Fraud-Pinnick of demotivating Eguafon that except allowance Eguafon will not be entitled to Rohr’s salary , not even 20% ( what a wicked act black against black and slavery mentality of corruption as in the yesteryears where our Obas , fellow Africans selling their countrymen to slavery because of corruption !!). That Eguafon did not crash in the first round as Ghana team that was handle by the foreign mechanic like Rohr; shows that Eguafon is in deed a magician
Unfortunately, most of the people in this forum that claimed they are well exposed , with the so called high education profile and big foreign job ; but one would wonder if those claim are really real , with their regular comment of blind support to Rohr that almost ran aground SE ( who could have thought we have a quality player in Mosses ? , for almost 6 years , no one reliable goalkeeper, no one single player that play free kick , and I cannot remember which year we scored last from free kick , plus over 5 years without 1st 11
( and yet some members in this loop that are appear suffering from complex and slavery mentality would be comparing Rohr that was tutored by Algerian local coach, not once but twice without red card with good officiating , with this Eguafon performance; dreaming of even bringing a quack like Rohr back to SE ). As you have said, no wonder we have the type of leaders we have in Nigeria today .
I am based in western world myself and a professional; from Europe to America; there is no country or system that would condone Rohr’s mediocrity for 1 year let alone over 5 years at the expense of their own , and being paid salary that their countrymen are not entitled to ; and at the expense of their local !! ( I am ashamed to be a Blackman of Nigerian origin )
For you to be rated in abroad, you must have a proven record and great performance that is far-far better than their own whites ; that is why hardly could you see any black goalie in premiership as N0 I; the likes of Mendy were never given chance in Chelsea until their so called overrated own white cannot stop to messed up with his huge salary that almost X 5 of Mendy .
Even Mo Salah had to prove exceptional before he became hero in Liv as he was never given any chance as Blackman ; no matter how good a black man is good as coach , they passed through hell before getting job abroad under harsh working environment; yet it is the opposite in Nigeria ( are we cursed as black nation !)
If Eguafon add Lukmon, Dessers, Dennis , Akin Amoo to SE with the return of Osimeh, & Balogun and possibly recall of Victor Mosses because for the dunkey years of Rohr ( he could not give us N0 7 which was our weakness as 2 to 3 players were detailed on Moses , the right winger was not effective); then reliable good goalkeeper ; there will be no team that can stand SE towards WC and even in WC proper as in Westerhof era
And when he had the chance to invite Amoo and Dressers what did he do? He claimed he hadn’t watched Dressers closely. He would have even invited Silas Nwankwo ahead of the two of he had the chance. That’s the issue with local coaches we r talking abt. He smuggled Ndah into the team ahead of Akpo and Ajayi. He reluctantly named the latter was Balo was out. But when Omeruo was out against Egypt, I was surprised he didn’t replace him with Ndah who was originally in the 28 man list but brought in Ajayi. If he had so much confidence in Ndah why did he wait until we were leading 2-0 in an inconsequential match before throwing him in?
Ndah if fielded could have done very well even against Sudan. It’s just our local coaches sometime just like Rohr became in the end confuse themselves. I can bet anyone that Ndah has vastly improved from his U-23 days as evidenced by his exploits in South African and the good account he gave of himself against GB. Everyone learnt some lessons from this AFCON… More the players, next time they will know not to give anyone a yard outside 18yard box. That our midfielders and attackers can’t hit target from 25yards does not mean other nations of like pedigree can’t… TUNISIA has been scoring that way against us for long… even enroute to AFCON 2010… Akaichi of Tunisia belted a 25yard shot to embarrass vincent Enyeama at Abuja also… after Michael Eneramo has given us the lead then to Nig 2 – 1 Tun… Our team needs to improve technically in a lot of areas… Shooting is an asset unrivaled in football… areas the likes of Yekini, Ekpo, Oliha and Amokachi used to be very good at back then… We cannot always expect teams to allow dribble and part their defence in to the 18yard for tap-ins… The difference between a striker and an attacker is in the ability to shoot… Yekini was a striker but what we have these days are attackers… Lol. Forward wey no Sabi shoot no be striker but attacker… Lol. One love..
*Akichi…