The decision of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to appoint Austine Eguavoen as the new coach of the senior national team of Nigeria has received condemnation from a former player of the team, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Eguavoen was tasked with holding the Super Eagles job in interim capacity, following the breakdown in talks with German coach Bruno Labbadia just a week before the start of the AFCON qualifiers, where they will be up against Benin Republic and Rwanda respectively.
Already Eguavoen has drafted in two assistants in Enugu Rangers’ head coach, Fidelis Ilechukwu and Daniel Ogunmodede of Remo Stars to assist him plot the downfall of the Cheetahs of Benin Republic and the Amavubi of Rwanda in the Super Eagles’ 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches this month.
They will be joined in Uyo by Tomaz Zorec, a fitness trainer from Slovenia, goalkeeper trainer Olatunji Baruwa and match analyst, Eboboritse Uwejamomere. All of them are expected to be in the camp of the Super Eagles which officially opens today.
One person who is not optimistic over the appointment of Eguavoen and his backroom staff is former Super Eagles defender Emeka Ezeugo who was a part of the team to the 1994 world cup, and a teammate of Eguavoen for many years.
He queried the rationale behind the appointment of Eguavoen for a fourth stint after his failures in his previous stints, which includes the most recent ones like crashing out of the AFCON in the round of 16 and failing to make it to the world cup 2022.
“Eguavoen, the backdoor giant is failure personified. Not that we are talking about your book but mine. Did Nigeria participate in the Qatar World Cup? Who was in charge of Nigeria’s national team then? Nigeria will not qualify for the next World Cup. Mark my words,” Ezeugo said on his Facebook page.
“There’s a deeper reason that’s alien to little minds here. There’s always a payback time in the culture of cutting corners. Wasn’t it one hundred percent certain for the Super Eagles to demolish the Ghana Black Stars in Abuja and qualify for the Qatar World Cup? Why didn’t we participate in that World Cup? NFF has been in the hands of clueless, unqualified, and crooked people for decades, and we’re so cool with it. We will definitely harvest exactly what we planted.”
