Nigeria sack coaches after World Cup qualification failure
Nigeria has a tradition of sacking coaches after World Cup qualification failures. This is one of the most common issues in Nigerian football, and it’s also one of the most discussed topics when we talk about the Nigeria national team. Now that the Super Eagles have failed to qualify for 2022 World Cup, many people are asking: when did they sack their coach? Did he resign? And why did he do it?
The Super Eagle’s may have lost the FIFA World Cup contention for 2022 but the fans are still excited to watch their international favorite teams in the upcoming matches. With at least 64 matches set to take place, Nigerians can recover from their disappointment by wagering through the best betting sites in Nigeria, which will be providing the best odds, fixtures, and statistics for all the 64 matches across the 28-day period. In the meantime, let’s find out more about Eguavoen’s exit from Super Eagle’s Technical team’s leadership.
After failing to qualify for the World Cup, the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has fired their technical staff after the coach resigned. It’s been a rough few weeks for the Super Eagles, but it seems they may have met their match in Ghana.
Tuesday 29th March was the final qualifying match between Nigeria and Ghana which didn’t end well for the Nigerian team. After the 1-1 draw with the Black Stars, Nigeria was officially knocked out of competition for the 2022 World Cup on the away goal guidelines. Despite this being a defeat for Nigeria, Ghana has made history by qualifying for its first World Cup since 2006. The Super Eagles had already qualified for five straight World Cups before this year, but now that they’ve been eliminated from contention in Qatar. As a result, fans are calling on the NFF to resign from their positions or step down from the committee entirely.
Super Eagles’ coach Augustine Eguavoen joined the team as the interim coach after the boys performed exceptionally in the AFCON 2022 group stage matches. Although the team lost to Tunisia in the most disappointing way, they made it to the World Cup Qualifiers for which NFF retained Eguavoen as the coach following the dismissal of their intention to hire Peseiro as the team’s coach. It’s absurd that 2 months later the coach decided to leave and now NFF will have to look for another one.
So what happened with Eguavoen?
Was he sacked or did he resign? Well, according to NFF (Nigerian Football Federation), Eguavoen stepped down from his position as head coach of Super Eagles after losing 1-1 against Ghana in 2022 WCQ in home soil. Some people believe that he was fired by NFF because they wanted to make change. Perhaps, “signing up” is just a cute statement. In a statement by Nigeria Football Federation President Amaju Pinnick said that “a new technical crew will be named in due course.” following the sacking of the entire technical team led by Augustin Eguavoen. NFF revoked the 2.5-year contracts with the rest of the technical team which seemed like a chain reaction caused by Eguavoen’s resignation.
The Communication’s Director of NFF, Olajire Ademola also added: “We are sad that we have not qualified for Qatar 2022 and we share in the pains and disappointment of our teeming fans. We can’t thank them enough for their unflinching support for the Super Eagles during this qualifying series.”
Some record in sacking coaches!
For a long time, it has been believed that Nigeria’s coaches and managers operate under very difficult conditions when compared with other countries, including Ghana who beat Nigeria to the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Before Eguavoen got hired as Super Eagles’ coach, the NFF had dismissed Gernot Rohr just a few months to the AFCON 2022 tournament. He had coached the team for at least 5 year since 2016 but unfortunately failed to deliver good outcomes as the fans and the football agency of Nigeria hoped for. Rohr was one of the longest serving Super Eagles’ coaches as most barely stay over 2 years.
What’s next?
You guessed right! NFF will hire a new coach and a technical team as they have already confirmed. But, is that enough? The Nigerian Football Federation needs to do better. Perhaps, it’s not the coaches who are incompetent but the inadequate time they are given before leading the boys in major tournaments.
For now let’s wait for the NFF to line up some new staff to replace Eguavoen and his entire team and hope that they find the right team and provide them with what they need to run and support the Super Eagles. As far as the World Cup is concerned, Nigeria will have to wait for 2026 to get another shot!