Super Eagles head coach Eric Sekhou Chelle has attributed Nigeria’s poor campaign at the African Nations Championship to a lack of adequate preparation before heading into the tournament, Footynaija.com reports.
The home-based Super Eagles’ elimination from the competition was already confirmed as early as the second round of group stage matches after suffering back-to-back defeats to Senegal and Sudan.
Their third group stage match against Congo was basically a dead-rubber tie with nothing at stake for the Super Eagles. Nevertheless, Chelle’s men showed their quality by securing a 2-0 victory to bow out of the tournament with pride.
Speaking after the game, Nigeria’s Franco-Malian boss revealed that his team were never really ready to compete at this year’s tournament. Chelle pointed out that the short amount of time he had to assemble and prepare his squad.
“The preparations for a CHAN tournament should start a year in advance,” Chelle said, per quotes revealed by CAF Online.
“For example, the player who won the Man of the Match award against Congo, Alex, I put him on our list for the tournament a week before we left, and everyone said, ‘Why did you call him up when he’s not known?’
“We weren’t ready to participate in this tournament. Whoever attends our training sessions will notice that our players weren’t mentally prepared to participate in this version of the tournament.”
Nigeria ended up playing the role of party poopers as their victory over Congo at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam put an end to the Red Devils’ dreams of progressing beyond the group stage.
After watching the home-based Super Eagles perform so well on Tuesday night, many fans will no doubt be left with a nagging imagination of what might’ve been.