- Nigeria lost three recent friendlies
- Failed to qualify for World Cup
- Amokachi says wrong choices to blame
WHAT HAPPENED? Amokachi’s sentiment followed Nigeria’s 4-0 defeat to Portugal in an international friendly played in Lisbon last week.
Without mentioning a single player or coach, Amokachi made a general statement saying the Super Eagles are struggling because of the wrong choices of players and coaches.
WHAT HAS BEEN SAID: "When you look at the Portugal game, that tells you that we don’t even deserve to be there [World Cup]," Amokachi lamented.
"There are one, two, or three different angles from which you have to look at it, bringing in the right coach, bringing in the right players, and getting the right environment to play at.
"We always bring the wrong coaches to handle a country like Nigeria; we always bring the wrong players."
THE BIGGER PICTURE: The Super Eagles engaged in three international friendlies in September and November and lost all of them.
They were beaten 2-1 by Algeria before a 2-0 loss to Costa Rica followed, although only players from the Nigerian Professional Football League faced the South American country.
Coach Jose Peseiro named a strong team to face Portugal on November 17, and they went down with an embarrassing defeat.
As the global focus is in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup finals, Nigerians – Africa’s perennial representatives – are not part of the competition. They were eliminated by Ghana during the playoff qualifying round in March.
Before that, the Super Eagles did not make much of an impact in the Africa Cup of Nations finals that were held in Cameroon.
Nigeria, the only team to have won all three of its group-stage games, were eliminated by Tunisia in the Round of 16.
WHAT NEXT FOR NIGERIA: After struggling in friendlies, the former African champions will convene again for the 2023 Afcon qualifiers in March.
They are scheduled to play Guinea Bissau in a doubleheader on March 20 and 28.
