Nigeria Fails to Qualify for 2017 Afcon
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A sport analyst, Tayo Balogun, says it is sad that the Super Eagles will be missing from the Africa Cup of Nations tournament for the second time.
Balogun told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday that Nigeria did not deserve this.
NAN reports that the Super Eagles were knocked out of contention for a slot in the Gabon 2017 AFCON in spite of having one more match to play in the qualifiers.
The withdrawal of Chad from the qualifiers did not help matters for Nigeria because the points gained from Chad were deducted by CAF.
By virtue of the development, the Super Eagles will not be able to qualify as the best loser from Group G.
“We competed against Egypt in crisis and in such a situation anything can happen. The players individually tried their best, but again no coach ever gets it right all the time.
“Luck was what we needed in the match, but unfortunately we didn’t get it, but the Egyptians did.
“If we fail to plan, off course we must plan to fail. The result we got is equivalent to our level of preparations,” he said.
Balogun said that the moves being made by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to hire a foreign technical adviser might not be a solution to the problem.
“The clamour for a foreign coach seems to be the next move, but I must categorically say it that the problem is not the coaching, but the situation on ground.
“The problem is about the NFF that does not know its onions and precisely what to do.
“I mean you employ a coach and both parties have a binding agreement, am referring to Sunday Oliseh and while the contrat is on, they were contracting another coach to take over his job.
“Oliseh got wind of it and opted out; he did what any other person would have done,” he said.
The analyst, however, urged the NFF to put the AFCON loss behind and pay more attention to the forthcoming 2018 World Cup.
“World Cup eliminations have already started and countries have been preparing for it. We have a whole lot on our hands if we want to make it to the tournament.
“The NFF should proffer solutions and not mistakes which have caused us many embarrassment and missing out from tournaments consecutively.
“By now we ought to have learnt from our mistakes and shouldn’t be making more of such mistakes,” Balogun said.
We Are Ashamed of Ourselves – Onazi
Super Eagles midfielder, Ogenyi Onazi, has described as ‘shameful’ the country’s failure to qualify for the 2017 African Nations Cup.
“We are so ashamed of ourselves for not qualifying for the 2017 AFCON despite all the support we got, particularly from the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick,” he told The Guardian yesterday in Lagos.
Onazi was one of the regular players in the Super Eagles during Coach Stephen Keshi’s era. He played a big role in Nigeria’s triumph at South Africa 2013 African Nations Cup.
He was invited by interim coach, Samson Siasia, for the double-header 2017 AFCON qualifier against the Pharaohs of Egypt, but many soccer fans were shocked to see Onazi siting among the spectators at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium last week in Kaduna during the first leg. He was also left out in the second leg in Egypt.
With the ticket lost to Egypt, Onazi says the team should take the blame and not the NFF President, Pinnick.”In my years of playing football for this country, I have not seen a caring sports administrator like Amaju Pinnick. I am not saying this because I need a favour from him, but I just want to set the records straight.
“This man has given us everything we need to succeed, but the results are not there to reciprocate his gesture. We are ashamed of ourselves for not qualifying for the 2017 AFCON.
Pinnick is always transparent in all his dealings with the Super Eagles. He does not hide anything from us. You won’t believe that Pinnick went as far as showing to us the approval he got from the Presidency concerning our match allowances and bonuses for the two games against Egypt.
Many others won’t do that because of one thing or the other. I was told that some board members are not even happy with him for doing so because they want to eat players’ money. I want to appeal to him not to feel frustrated,” Onazi stated.
