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The decision by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to appoint Austine Eguavoen as the new coach of the Nigeria senior national team has been met with condemnation from a former player of the team, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Eguavoen has been handed the job of the Super Eagles on an interim basis after talks with German coach Bruno Labbadia broke down just a week before the start of the AFCON qualifiers, where they will face Benin Republic and Rwanda respectively.
Eguavoen has already recruited two assistant head coaches of Enugu Rangers, Fidelis Ilechukwu and Daniel Ogunmodede of Remo Stars to help him mastermind the downfall of the Cheetahs of Benin Republic and Amavubi of Rwanda in the Super Eagles’ 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers this month.
They will be joined in Uyo by Slovenian fitness coach Tomaz Zorec, goalkeeping fitness coach Olatunji Baruwa and match analyst Eboboritse Uwejamomere. All of them are expected to be part of the Super Eagles’ camp, which officially opens today.
One person who is not optimistic about the appointment of Eguavoen and his support staff is former Super Eagles defender Emeka Ezeugo, who was part of the team at the 1994 World Cup and a teammate of Eguavoen for many years.
He questioned the logic behind Eguavoen’s appointment for a fourth term after his failures in his previous tenures, which include most recently exiting the AFCON in the round of 16 and failing to make it to the 2022 World Cup.
“Eguavoen, the backdoor giant, is failure personified. Not that we are talking about your book, but mine. Did Nigeria participate in the World Cup in Qatar? Who was in charge of the Nigerian national team then? Nigeria will not qualify for the next World Cup. Mark my words,” Ezeugo said on his Facebook page.
“There is a deeper reason that is alien to the small minds here. There is always a moment of revenge in the culture of cutting corners. Was it not a hundred percent certain that the Super Eagles would crush the Black Stars of Ghana in Abuja and qualify for the Qatar World Cup? Why did we not participate in that World Cup? The NFF has been in the hands of clueless, unqualified and corrupt people for decades, and we are very fine with that. We will definitely reap exactly what we sow.”
