Five highlights from the career of new Super Eagles coach Janne Andersson

61-year-old Swede Jan Olof “Janne” Andersson has been appointed as the new head coach of the Nigerian national team by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

The coach will replace Finidi George, who left his post six weeks ago after a poor run of results in World Cup qualifying matches, where the team drew 1-1 with South Africa before losing 1-2 to Benin Republic.

Andersson was given the nod ahead of the duo of Eric Chelle and Tom Saintfeit, who were the only two remaining among the four coaches shortlisted for the job after Herve Renard turned down the opportunity and Steve McClaren took the job with the Jamaica national team.

He is expected to get straight to work with 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Benin Republic and Rwanda respectively. We pick out five highlights from his coaching career so far.

1. In July 2016, Andersson was named the 47th best coach in the world by football magazine FourFourTwo. In November 2018, Andersson was named by FourFourTwo as the 17th best coach in the world. At the 2019 Swedish Sports Awards, Andersson was named Coach of the Year.

2. Led Sweden to their best World Cup performance in six attempts in 2018, when they reached the quarter-finals before losing to England.

3. As Sweden’s coach, the team did the incredible by finishing first in their 2018 World Cup group, which included defending champions Germany, South Korea and Mexico.

4. Andersson led Sweden to a place in the Nations League A and guided the team to impressive victories over the Netherlands and Italy respectively, only to oust them from the major tournaments.

5. His record with Sweden is 48 wins in 94 games, giving him a 51 per cent success rate during his time in charge.