The senior national team of Nigeria smashed ten goals past Sao Tome and Principe in their second 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers played in Morocco, the adopted home ground of the host of the tie.

Victor Osimhen smashed four goals in the win two assists as well. Terem Moffi grabbed a brace while Simon Moses, Oghenekaro Etebo, Ademola Lookman and Emmanuel Dennis scored one each to complete the rout.

Osimhen who is presently the top scorer in the qualifiers with five goals in two games was asked the secret behind his four goals haul and he explained that it was down to the instructions of the coach Jose Peseiro.

“First of all I have to say congratulations to the entire team and also a big kudos to the coach for all the instructions he gave us. I believe we carry out 80 to 90 percent of them and of course I am happy to score four goals and I am happy for my other teammates that got their goals as well. Their first goals the likes of Ademola Lookman, Terem Moffi and Emmanuel Dennis”, he explained.

“There is a big solidarity in the team and this is what the coach has taught us and I believe as a group we have the quality to build on this momentum and yes I want to score more goals for the team.

“Of course keep on getting the wins for the team and I believe as each game come by we are going to get the three points because it’s important in this qualifiers games because we don’t want to lose any game and we are working towards it”, he concluded.

The coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro has revealed the secret of his team beating Sao Tome and Principe 10-0 in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers away in Morocco.

Peseiro’s wards ran riot with Victor Osimhen scoring four goals while Terem Moffi grabbed a brace. Moses Simon, Ademola Lookman, Oghenekaro Etebo and Emmanuel Dennis completed the rout.

Reacting to the hefty scoreline, the coach of the Nigerian team said the secret behind the heavy win is due to the fact that the players are beginning to understand how he wants his team to play.

“I want to improve our organisation on the pitch because we didn’t train too much with them and we want to introduce our ideas. This match was good because they tried to follow our organisation. Our style, our ideas they follow it. They tried and the guys who were introduced in the match, they did well. I select the players to start and they did well”, he said at the post match presser.

The senior national team of Nigeria picked up their second win in as many games with a comprehensive 10-0 win over Sao Tome and Principe in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Nigeria got off to a flying start with Victor Osimhen profiting from a well timed cross by Moses Simon to make it 1-0. Ten minutes later Osimhen returned the favour by turning provider for Simon to put Nigeria two goals up.

Terem Moffi grabbed the first of his two goals making good use of a through ball by Osimhen to put the Super Eagles 3-0 up going into the half time break. It didn’t take long after the restart for Nigeria to score again.

Oghenekaro Etebo put the game to rest with a well taken free kick but even at 4-0, they still wanted more and Osimhen duly provided it for his second of the game.

Moffi was next in line for Nigeria’s sixth and his second of the game. Ademola Lookman got in on the act with a goal of his own. Osimhen grabbed his hattrick to make it 8-0. He was on target again to make it 9-0.

Substitute Emmanuel Dennis make it ten from the spot picking himself up after he was fouled in the box to earn Nigeria their biggest win ever in international football.

The coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro has released the list of players who will start for Nigeria against Sao Tome and Principe in their second 2023 AFCON Qualifiers game.

Peseiro dropped three players who started the win over Sierra Leone on Thursday with the quartet of Terem Moffi, Zaidu Sanusi, Ademola Lookman and Oghenekaro Etebo replacing Joe Aribo, injured William Troost Ekong, Samuel Chukwueze and Sadiq Umar.

Moses Simon will wear the captain armband for the game and it will be the first time the Nantes winger will be leading Nigeria out in a competitive game. He was made captain in the absence of Ahmed Musa and his vice Ekong.

*Super Eagles 11*
Francis Uzoho
Ola Aina
Oghenekaro Etebo
Semi Ajayi
Ademola Lookman
Victor Osimhen
Terem Moffi
Zaidu Sanusi
Moses Simon  *Captain*
Alex Iwobi
Calvin Bassey

The head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro has revealed what his team need to do in order to stem the tide of conceding early when they take on Sao Tome and Principe tomorrow in Morocco.

In the three games Nigeria have played under the guidance of the Portuguese, they have conceded first even in their first game of the qualifiers, they came from behind to beat Sierra Leone 2-1 in Abuja.

Peseiro speaking ahead of tomorrow’s game said he has been working with the team on their shape defensively hoping that it will bear fruit as he hates his team conceding goals not to even talking of conceding early into the game.

“I don’t want that. I don’t like to suffer goals, any time. We must work more. More time, more sessions, more meetings and we have been doing that. Working on how to defend as a group and also attack as a group. Several video sessions on defending set piece as well”, he told OwnGoalNigeria.com.

” We go into the game tomorrow with a different approach and mindset to defend better and also attack better. When we don’t concede we can play to our strength and joy”, he concluded.

As the Super Eagles of Nigeria gear up to face Sao Tome and Principe in tomorrow’s 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers, the Nigerian team have been warned not to take the team from the island for granted.

While Nigeria started their campaign on a high edging Sierra Leone 2-1 in Abuja, Sao Tome and Principe coached by Adriano Eusébio and nicknamed  Falcão e Papagaio were thrashed 5-1 by Guinea Bissau.

The results leaves them bottom of the group but ahead of their second game, team’s influential midfielder Jokceleny Carvalho “Iniesta” told local publication Nation that they are not in anyway going to make it easy for Nigeria.

” We want to win. Yes and we can do it to create one of the shocks of the qualifiers. We scored first in our first game but lose heavily. The lessons learnt from that game will be of great use for us against Nigeria. Who are the better team but we fancy our chances”, he concluded.

An explanation on why the recently renovated Moshood Abiola Stadium was an eyesore during the Super Eagles 2-1 win over Sierra Leone has been revealed to OwnGoalNigeria.com.

The pitch has gone from the lush green surface that hosted the Super Eagles in the ill fated 1-1 draw against Ghana in the World Cup playoff in March to one littered with patches and mud.

So bad was the surface that the players of the senior national team of Nigeria struggled to express themselves on it. Something that led to inquests on how the pitch became so bad in such a short period of time.

Explaining, a source at the ministry said it is not the fault of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as they are not privy to the maintenance of the stadium rather it was contracted to a firm for maintenance by the ministry of youth and sports.

He said the company handling the maintenance are short of key equipments needed like water sprinkler which is the commonest and most important in pitch maintenance. He said they were renting the one they used prior to the game against Ghana.

Since then they have reverted to manual watering of the pitch which doesn’t have same effect and also makes the pitch to be water logged. Again no one from the ministry took time to supervise the job until three days to the game against Sierra Leone.

The minister for youth and sports summoned the maintenance firm and gave them a deadline to ensure that the pitch returns to its original state before the Super Eagles next game in September.

Genk of Belgium forward Cyriel Dessers says he understands that Napoli forward Victor Osimhen is for now the main striker for the senior national team of Nigeria.

Dessers played in back to back friendly games for Nigeria against Mexico and Ecuador respectively but was an unused substitute on Thursday when they defeated Sierra Leone 2-1 in the first game of the AFCON 2023 qualifiers.

He was asked if he was disappointed not to get a look in considering that he scored Nigeria’s lone goal during the two friendly games in the United States of America which was in the 1-2 loss to Mexico, Dessers said he understands that Osimhen is ahead of him in the national team.

“Victor Osimhen is still the number 1. But in the US he was not there and I got my chance, along with Terem Moffi. It’s a shame we lost those games, but I showed something. Hopefully I’ll be in the squad this week”, he said while looking ahead of tomorrow’s game against Sao Tome and Principe.

In a separate interview he was asked if he feels he should have waited for a call up to the Belgium team who are now in dire need of options in attack. The top scorer in the Europa Conference League with ten goals said when he got the call up to the Nigerian team he didn’t have any doubt in accepting it.

“When the invitation from Nigeria came, I had no doubts. It was a huge honour. In any case, I am someone who stands behind his choices and I do that now. If you have to wait for a possible selection at the Red Devils, then you may have nothing at all,” Dessers starts told Dutch media De Telegraaf .

Scorer of Nigeria’s first goal the WAFU Under-17 championship Emmanuel Michael has explained why he dedicated his man of the match award to Super Eagles ace Moses Simon.

Michael opened scoring with a sublime freekick from over 30 yards to set Nigeria on the road towards beating host Ghana 4-2 in the first game of the tournament.

He was subsequently awarded the man of the match award which he said he is dedicating to Simon, whose wife owns the academy that he plays for Simoiben Academy.

Explaining he said he is dedicating the award to the Nantes star as he is the brain behind his current status. He also said the boot he used in scoring the goal was gifted to him by Simon. Same boots he used at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon in January.

“This award is dedicated to my mentor Moses Simon, he is the brain behind my current status and he gave me a chance to live my dreams by enrolling me into his academy”, Michael said at the post match.

“The boot I used in playing against Ghana was the boot Moses Simon used at AFCON in Cameroon. He gave me the boot and I decided not to use the boot till God saw me through the U-17 screening and I used it in the first match, which I played well and got this award”, he stated.

Head coach of the senior national team of Sierra Leone John Kester says his team were unlucky not to beat Nigeria in their first game of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in Abuja.

Kester saw his team took an early lead against Nigeria but were eventually beaten 2-1 by Nigeria. He said it was disappointing as they came to Nigeria to be competitive and at least get a win.

“Our goal was to come here and be competitive and to be honest I thought with the group of young players that we had, we deserved something out of the game today. That’s no disrespect to Nigeria at all. I just felt we deserved something”, he explained.

“But then again, the performance will give us alot more confidence going into our next match and that’s very important,” he stated.

He said the performance against Nigeria has raised the hope of his boys that they can get a result against Guinea Bissau and also motivate Sao Tome and Principe to go all out against Nigeria in the other group game.

“Coming into Nigeria and putting in a performance like this, where we felt we could have gotten something out of it was very impressive. So, for us it is progress as it takes us into the next match as well where we know we hopefully are going to get a result.

“But, for me, even though this was not the result we wanted, the performance which we thought deserved something is credit to my players. I think they have come here and showcased what we are about and want to achieve going forward,” he said.

He noted that they would go back to the drawing board and correct their mistakes, stressing that such errors were bound to occur, especially with a young team in a transitional period.

“Again, when you talk about bringing young players through a transition period, there is an element always once in a while of loss of concentration.

“We scored the early goal but took our eyes off the ball a little bit at some point and allowed Nigeria back into the game.

“I think that was the turning point for us, but again we had a second goal scoring opportunity and if that had gone in, it could have been a different game.

“But of course, we will take alot of positives from the performance going forward.,” he concluded.