Super Eagles head coach, Finidi George is optimistic the Super Eagles will get maximum points from their next two games against South Africa and Benin Republic.
The three-time African champions are yet to record a win in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers having drawn their opening two games against Lesotho and Zimbabwe.
Finidi’s side will host the Bafana Bafana of South Africa at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium, Uyo on Friday June 7.
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The Super Eagles will then travel to Abidjan for a matchday four encounter against the Squirrels three days later.
Finidi reckoned it is important for the Super Eagles to win both games.
“These are must-win games for us to be comfortable in our group. I believe we will win both games,” the former Enyimba head coach said during his media tour on Thursday.
“We have to believe we can win, the (2023) AFCON is gone, we now have to put in the effort to win again.”
7 Comments
The headline appears to me incompatible with the statement made by Finidi in the body of the article.
The serendipitously selected Super Eagles Head Coach called the encounters must-wins and said he believes he can orchestrate the wins.
The question would have been how? What makes him believe he can win? What has he put in place and what will he do differently?
Belief has to be backed up by background works but, unless Finidi is keeping his cards close to his trademark beards, there is no basis for this belief.
He is untested at this level and a high number of his backroom staff are virgins in national team football at this level. He will most likely call up the bulk of players utilised by his predecessors and, to make matters worse, will likely call untested homebase players to satisfy the yearnings of a section of his paymasters.
So, conventional wisdom will suggest caution going into these encounters.
Good luck to Finidi but there is nothing in the article to boost confidence.
I wish Finidi and the team well. If indeed he and his team achieve success in these encounters, I will regard these as major upsets based on the calibre of coaches he will be up against !
Good luck to Finidi and his team. May the Nigeria fire-brigade-to-success spirit prevail!
*fire-brigade-approach-to-success* spirit.
Deo, Nigerians always like their coaches to be braggadocious. Any form of reservation is always interpreted as timidity and deflating the confidence of his players.
Finidi by nature is a cool chap. He will do his public perception a world of good by firing salvos at every given opportunity.
I can’t say much about Finidi capability but I wish him good luck in both encounters and beyond.
If he wins both matches convincingly then Nigerians will respect Finidi.
He should beat Oga Rohr’s team to show NFF ajewomasan the debtors that our own are the best for the job.
He should beat South Africa to show us he is capable period. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Finidi shouldnt gamble with his players selection in this game, he should be able to bit these teams with a normal 442 or 433 formation, at this stage we dont need to pack defens! as we are already 2 points behind group leader, we need to be very offensive and agressive, we need to start sending victorious msgs to other africa bigs that we are killer eagles.
He should come up with our best legs at the moment, and he should Forget the 3 man center back, it doesnt bring confidents to the team
My prefered formation for these games looking at current form is 442,
Nwabali
Aina ajayi bassey bruno
Iwobi frank ndidi lookman
Osihmen boniface
If ekong is available he can push bassey to left back and keep bruno in bench, the likes of tella, onyedika and chukueze, can come in the second half, he can also bring in awoniyi or moffi for either strikers.
With my starting line up, Finidi can equaly switch to 433 or 352 when necesary, expecially with boniface in his team, to switch to 433 he can push iwobi into the center and puch boniface to the right, that guy can still do better in the right than our overhyped wingers, He can also push boniface deeper to the midfield while iwobi go closer to osihmen and lookman, if he wish to switch to his favourite 352 he still have to keep to this line up, he can easily push ndidi to the middle of the center backs and allow lookman and iwobi to join onyeka in the center park, while boniface and osihmen remain upfront. The nonsense i dont want to see is unecesary texting of unknown legs and funny substitutes, this games are very crucial to our qualification to the worldcup, rohr and hugo Bruce are no jokes in this group, i wish the supereagles big success.
I like the line up for starting and although I am completely against starting Iwobi, the presence of Ndidi and Frank should be enough to provide defensive stability but my own line up would differ from yours with the obvious omission of Iwobi, I would play someone else there like maybe Simon, or Tella or someone like Eli Adebayo, we have no shortage of much better players than Iwobi for him to be starting in a team like this, no Iwobi, Nacho, Chuks etc in the starting line up period!
I’ve said it that Nigeria will not qualify for this World Cup because of the incompetence of the NFF in appointing a coach and there middling in the affairs of coaching