Former Nigerian international Sunday Oliseh believes Super Eagles striker Victor Osimhen’s outburst against teammate Ademola Lookman affected his game at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.
Recall that the encounter occurred against Mozambique, where the Galatasaray forward was caught on camera confronting Lookman in the 63rd minute after the Atalanta winger missed a scoring opportunity despite Osimhen being unmarked in the box.
By that stage of the match, Lookman had already created two clear chances for Osimhen, including one that resulted in a direct assist, while another opportunity came through Akor Adams. The Super Eagles eventually defeated the Mambas 4-0 to cruise to the quarter-final stages.
Oliseh, via his official YouTube channel, argued that Lookman’s form dipped noticeably after the confrontation, affecting Nigeria’s attacking edge in the semifinal.
“Let’s look at the toxicity that might have caused us (Nigeria) the AFCON title,” Oliseh said on his YouTube channel.
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“We are confusing talent with license. Victor Osimhen is world class but talent is not license to destroy team chemistry.
“Look at the evidence. Since that public outburst against Ademola Lookman, one of our brightest lights, Lookman became a shadow of himself and we lost the bite.
“When you publicly diminish your teammates, you break their spirit. You destroy the very confidence a team needs to survive a semifinal. Against a team as tactically sharp as Morocco, we needed our best players at a hundred percent.
“Statistically, Ademola Lookman was the most dangerous player in the tournament, until that public verbal abuse broke his focus. You can’t expect a playmaker to perform a miracle on the pitch when he has been demoralised by his own teammate.
“The conflict did its damage. We didn’t just lose a game, we lost the psychological edge needed to win.
“What is worse, and frankly, what is most dangerous for our football is the fan culture that now tolerates this.”
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Fact is Oliseh is naturally a heady and troublesome fellow. Ironically, though, he thinks he’s a voice of reason and common sense.
I was watching that podcast where he made this false assertion and I was thinking “What exactly does Oliseh stand to gain with this???”. Like what would be the positives from this, whether for himself, the players involved, the fans, or the NFF?
… Like what’s the benefit of stirring the hornet’s nest and fracturing the team’s unity – an entire 2 weeks after the incident??? What’s the motive, man!!?? There’s definitely something fundamentally wrong – beyond the surface. A deep-seated grudge for someone who was hired as a pundit for the event.
And to think Oliseh was worse during his playing days. And when he was handed the SE team, he destroyed everywhere. The worst coach to handle the SE. Finidi was even better. Of his set, Amokachi, Eguavoen, Okocha, Ikpeba, Kanu, Aiyegbeni etc, who else runs a YouTube podcasts, attacks current and ex coaches and players, and speaks recklessly like Oliseh???
Why do the others maintain dignified silence or try soothe situations, unlike smart alec Oliseh? Cos Oliseh was and is still a heady person, just now an older of it – from his playing days to his coaching stint to Holland coaching journey to his spat with Mikel Obi, Onigbinde, Okocha, and now Osimhen. Trouble, quarrel everywhere marked and ended all those relationships.
Osimhen has his shortcomings and we don’t fail to point it. New revelations about the incident even showed he was actually directing his rant to Bruno and only tried to reemphasize his points to Lookman when Lookman joked that he was already on 2 goals. It was a heat of the moment thing. The lads, like true professionals, are not even making anything out of it, as Mr Oliseh who’s trying to build a skyscraper from the small pool of water.
Mr Oliseh, you live in a glass house with very thin frames. Stop throwing stones! Why are you always attacking this new set of SE players. Are you afraid they’ll break some records set by your generation????
Me and ugo talk the same thing o. Chai oliseh you don nail am….
Talking of a pot calling a kettle black.
Oliseh, Your temperament and tantrums are far worse than Osimhen.
Did you forget so soon………..let me remind you:
You joined the golden generation, the 1994 SE as a youngster but fought with established stars like Siasia in Papendal, Holland camp. You fought against the Keshi mafia and instrumental to starving Rashidi Yekini of passes leading to the fall of Yekini.
How you destroyed the momentum of the team in the 2002 AFCON? You even walked out the Honorable Minister of Sport from your camp in Senegal 2002 just before the SF match, which your team eventually lost.
Your actions led to your team being disbanded before the 2002 World Cup leading to our worst outing at any WC till today.
Then, you got a second chance and got appointed as SE Coach but went AWOL and abandoned the team before the last AFCON Qualifier match against Egypt, after destroying the chemistry of the team by fighting with the senior players like Enyeama, Emenike & Mike Obi. You inherited a 2013 AFCON Champion but couldn’t qualify for the next AFCON to defend the title.
Now you’re back as a pundit/commentator and want to continue your role of destroying this team that has brought some pride and joy to Nigerians, e no go work
@SundayOOliseh
You destroyed SE as a Captain, destroyed SE as a coach and now ready to destroy this team again as a pundit / commentator
For a man who, as a player, headbutted his own teammate, broke his nose, and was duly sacked by his club, recall his exit from Juventus also bore a similar pattern…….A man who fought his own players and assistants at Sittard, leading to a poor run of results, before hurriedly running away just before getting sacked and lying to the world he was being forced to do fraud…..LMAOOooo………A man who retired 3 of the most experienced SE players at the time (Enyeama, Emenike and Efe) and confined Mikel the biggest remaining player on the bench, within weeks of becoming SE coach, and once again ran away from the job when AFCON qualification was looking impossible because his business projects Igboun and Onobi were simply substandard to power us to qualification, fighting everyone, including the NFA, and calling the fans lunatics, is here talking about team morale………LMAOooo.
I don’t know what this man Oliseh takes himself for…….but whoever knows him should tell him to pipe down on his self-glorification agenda that is refusing to gain any meaningful momentum with each passing day. He should be more bothered about his now failed coaching career having spiraled terribly from becoming a national coach, a club coach, a FIFA errand boy (in the name of TSG member) to him becoming an ordinary backup commentator, a job he is even so terrible at. Several times, his main commentator Mark Gleeson even would laugh off some of the things that came out of his mouth during their commentaries, not because they were funny, but because laughing it off was just the most polite way of saying “what a stupid comment”.
The man heavily mistakes the ability to speak good English or being a polyglot for being intelligent……….LMAOooooo
LISTENING TO SUNDAY OLISEH IS LIKE LISTENING TO A FAULTY PEPPER GRINDER.
A man who, as a player, headbutted his own teammate, broke his nose, and was duly sacked by his club, recall his exit from Juventus also bore a similar pattern…….A man who fought his own players and assistants at Sittard, leading to a poor run of results, before hurriedly running away just before getting sacked and lying to the world he was being forced to do fraud…..LMAOOooo………A man who retired 3 of the most experienced SE players at the time (Enyeama, Emenike and Efe) and confined Mikel the biggest remaining player on the bench, within weeks of becoming SE coach, and once again ran away from the job when AFCON qualification was looking impossible because his business projects Sylvester Igboun and Paul Onobi were simply substandard to power us to qualification, fighting everyone, including the NFA, and calling the fans lunatics, is here talking about team morale………LMAOooo.
The man who insulted a whole sports minister is ranting about Osimhen not showing respect to his fellow 94 squad tingods.
I don’t know what this man Oliseh takes himself for…….but whoever knows him should tell him to pipe down on his self-glorification agenda that isn’t looking like gaining any meaningful momentum other than his own repeat empahsis, with each passing day.
He should be more bothered about his now failed coaching career having sprialled terribly from becoming a national coach, a club coach, a FIFA errand boy (in the name of TSG member) to him becoming an ordinary backup commentator, a job he is even so terrible at. Several times, his main commentator Mark Gleeson even would laugh off some of the things that came out of his mouth during their commentaries, not because they were funny, but because laughing it off was just the most polite way of saying “what a stupid comment”.
The man heavily mistakes the ability to speak good English or being a polyglot for being intelligent……….LMAOooooo
The same demoralized Lookman produced a third assist after the bust-up with Osimhen……yes, right after the bust-up…….LMAOOooo.
The same demoralized Lookman didn’t put a foot wrong vs Algeria in the next match. Infact he could have had 1 goal and 1 assist before the end of the 1st half alone if not for the goalkeeping heroics of Luca Zidane. The demoralized Lookman ran to hug Osimhen, rather than Akor the goalscorer, after our 2nd goal in that game
The only shot at goal we had vs Morocco in 120 minutes was from the same demoralized Lookman, in a game where the entire midfield, attack, and even our technical crew was marked out by the Moroccans.
The demoralized Lookman came off the bench vs Egypt in the 3rd place, gave Akor what would have been an assist, but which Akor fluffed.
Lookman must be a Cristiano Messi to have been demoralized yet producing these sorts of potentially match winning perfomances. Were he not to be demoralized, he would still be delivering 2 goals and 3 assists per game as the competition got to its later stages because it was Tanzania and Mozambique we were facing………LMAOoooo.
Indeed, it is possible for a human being to grow physically while stalling in growth mentally. Some of these 94 squad guys really fall into that category. Oliseh in particular, seems to still walk around with the same brain he’s been carrying since he was an U23 player.
Oliseh’s explanation for why we couldn’t defeat Morocco in the Semis and Egypt in the 3rd place in regulation time was down to a “demoralized” Lookman………LMAOoooo.
I think I’m loving this comedy.
The same demoralized Lookman produced a third assist after the bust-up with Osimhen……yes, right after the bust-up…….LMAOOooo.
The same demoralized Lookman didn’t put a foot wrong vs Algeria in the next match. Infact he could have had 1 goal and 1 assist before the end of the 1st half alone if not for the goalkeeping heroics of Luca Zidane. The demoralized Lookman ran to hug Osimhen, rather than Akor the goalscorer, after our 2nd goal in that game
The only shot at goal we had vs Morocco in 120 minutes was from the same demoralized Lookman, in a game where the entire midfield, attack, and even our technical crew was marked out by the Moroccans.
The demoralized Lookman came off the bench vs Egypt in the 3rd place, gave Akor what would have been an assist, but which Akor fluffed.
Lookman must be a Cristiano Messi to have been demoralized yet producing these sorts of potentially match winning perfomances. Were he not to be demoralized, he would still be delivering 2 goals and 3 assists per game as the competition got to its later stages because it was Tanzania and Mozambique we were facing………LMAOoooo.
Indeed, it is possible for a human being to grow physically while stalling in growth mentally. Some of these 94 squad guys really fall into that category. Oliseh in particular, seems to still walk around with the same brain he’s been carrying since he was an U23 player.
Oliseh’s explanation for why we couldn’t defeat Morocco in the Semis and Egypt in the 3rd place in regulation time was down to a “demoralized” Lookman………LMAOoooo.
I think I’m loving this comedy.
It is safe to say oliseh is simply looking for attention….and he is getting it..
His insistence on benching Mikel for Paul Onobi was a shocker, to say the least.
Oliseh has his good sides, but his mistakes continue to tarnish what otherwise should be a glowing legacy.
While his problems with authority are well documented and stand condemned, one must also remember that his outbursts were not entirely unprovoked. He fought for the players to get their unpaid bonuses. I remember a clip on Youtube where Aiyegbeni talked about NFF refusing to pay players during his time. In fact, once at the airport, he said himself and another player called Bright Igbinadolor had to manhandle an NFF official in a bid to get their ticket money refunded. According to the Yak, these are his very words “I grabbed him by the waist and said you must give me my money”.
The NFF official tried to whine them. He said “When next you come, you will get your money”. Yak said “No chance, maybe next time they won’t call me, and my money will enter voicemail”. They held him there until he finally paid them! So he had the money all along. He just didn’t want to pay them!
This is the environment Oliseh and his colleagues found themselves in. Nonpayment of bonuses was an ever present distraction, demoralizing players and leading to disappointing results on the pitch.
There was even more frustration at that time, as the president for reasons best known to him boycotted Nigeria from the 1996 Afcon, at a time when Nigeria had by far the strongest team on the continent. Imagine Senegal boycotting the just concluded Afcon. And then CAF go ahead and ban us for yet another Afcon, in 1998. So 2 Afcon trophies that were there for the taking were lost.
It’s incredible to think that 20 something years after the fact, Oliseh and his colleagues are still being owed! Add to that the nonpayment of his salary as Nigeria coach, and it makes you wonder. The Bible says oppression can make even a wise person act crazy. The shenanigans of NFF over the years is enough to make someone go completely bonkers. I think Oliseh is a victim of the gross incompetence and corruption of the NFF in particular, and he was lashing out against the injustice. Yes, he overdid it, but it’s easy to condemn him when you are not individually affected. It is he who wears the shoe that knows where it pinches.
Yes, he fled from the SE job in 2015 just before a crucial Afcon qualifier against Egypt. But was he contractually bound to continue that job? By failing to pay him, NFF nullified the contract between them. It was his choice to keep working without pay, or to leave, and he chose to leave.
As we condemn him copiously for what looks like a cowardly decision to abandon the team at such a crucial time, we will be highly mistaken if we fail to point even more fingers at the culprits in chief, ONIGBESE NFF. If they had been paying his salary and giving him the admin support he needs, I doubt very much that he would have walked away from the job!
His man management was a problem. He has to be held accountable for the rash way he treated players, failing to get along with key players. I’m hoping that he should have grown out of that antagonistic phase, and is now a more mature, level headed individual. If he, who should be a national hero, finds himself constantly maligned due to past misbehaviour, it’s up to him to change the narrative with his actions going forward.
Oliseh helped Nigeria to qualify for 3 world cups, 1994, 1998 and 2002.
Significant amount of money got paid to the NFF from FIFA world cup participation fees and other revenues.
We’re talking about money in the neighborhood of $100 million from these 3 world cup tournaments.
Yet, NFF would owe coaches for long periods. They failed to pay the chump change that was the players’ bonuses, even though the money was available! And the players are not fools. They know the money is there. It was a classic case of monkey dey work, baboon dey chop. Players sweating and bleeding on the pitch to get results, while their hard earned money is lining private pockets!
How on earth are players expected to give their best on the pitch in these circumstances?
So while we chastise Oliseh for his mistakes, let us not ignore the horrible circumstances that brought out the worst in him.