Super Eagles caretaker coach Augustine Eguavoen has defended his formation for the team’s away clash with Rwanda on Tuesday.
The West Africans were held to a 0-0 draw by the Amavubi at the Amahoro Stadium, Kigali.
Eguavoen opted for the same 3-4-3 formation he used in the team’s 3-0 win over the Cheetahs of Benin Republic last weekend
“I have been saddled with responsibility of qualifying the team for the next AFCON,”he reporters after the game.
“You know all our boys are playing abroad, for big clubs, so it is difficult within three days to prepare the team. We trained for three, four days before the Benin game.
“We then have to come here, it is very difficult to change formation. We don’t have time to play friendlies.
Read Also:AFCON 2025Q: How Super Eagles Rated In Draw Against Rwanda
“We used the same formation at AFCON. It’s difficult to change things at this limited time.”
Eguavoen also explained the reason behind his decision to bench Victor Osimhen for the second consecutive game.
Osimhen is our brother, you can’t throw a baby away with the bath water. We know what he is going through in Napoli. He just moved to Galatasaray and has not been playing active football for a while now,” Eguavoen added.
“We are trying to manage his fitness. He played the last 25 minutes in the last game and today we had a word with him that he can’t play 90 minutes or else he will get injured.
“Awoniyi before he came, had few minutes. We have 23 to 40 players we can picked from all the time. We can t play with all of them.
“So, it is a difficult one, we have the talent, but can’t start more than 11 players at a time. We talked about it, the bonding is there, it is acceptable to everyone.
“Sometimes the players can get frustrated but we know there is an accord. When you play give your best, when you are on the bench, do your best to support the team.”
By Adeboye Amosu
14 Comments
I don’t problem with your formation but after the Benin win you started boasting about changing formation and anybody can win with eagles. My only advise is you stop saying what you can’t do just because it went your way. Let’s be wise to know when to talk big and that should be after every series and not prior to games.
Infact am disappointed in you EGUAVEON. I expected you to be a comrade..I expected you to bench osimhen all through as a punishment for the disrespect on your fellow comrade finidi…..
The formation remains the best for the team. We should be thankful to Pesseiro for identifying the best for the team. You failed with starting two wrong players..
Chukwueze still needs to understand the act of recovery to defend and making the best use of the ball when he is fed. This is what Simon does better.
Boniface is not the type of striker for this formation because he is not shadowing enough aggressiveness, speed and seems to be interested in making plays. This us where Osi and Awo do better. These two play direct attack with guts.
You owe no one any explanation. he should have not been invited in the first place just like chima stated. This is how you start accommodating insubordination. It was obvious he was rusty. He had no business playing. Awoniyi should have started in his place.
This is the worst paragraph I have read today (culled from the above article):
“I have been saddled with responsibility of qualifying the team for the next AFCON,”he reporters after the game.”
Wait oh. After all the rigmarole of hiring world-class coach for the super Eagles since Peserio left in February, Gusau and his ilks have settled for Eguavoen?
Oh, because qualifiers will end in November? After November, what happens next?
A coach on his 4th stint in a national team will NOT PRODUCE ANYTHING NEW. Can an old dog be taught new tricks?
Shame on you, NFF if the nonsense above is correct. Suddenly, any formation can beat other teams switched to there were no friendlies to test new formations.
No, NFF must use AFCON 2023 prize money and FG 12 billion naira to hire a world class coach. Egusvoen, thank you for your service. Time to leave the scene and not be greedy. You are caretaker coach for a reason.
For Christ’s sake, you have been “inactive” in coaching for too long. The boys knew they were on knife’s edge if they bungled this window after drab world cup qualifiers because many of them would have almost played their last matches if they flopped. That’s why they turned up – they are all REPLACEABLE.
Technical director, step aside in your own interest. Don’t let sycophants fool you. If NFF can severally set aside your department’s choice of coaches since the Portuguese left, Amuneke instead of Finidi, Chelle instead of Labalaba (according to one commenter here lol), don’t feel you are not a pawn in glasshouse hands.
Oga, local coaches will not command respect from our egocentric foreign pros. So, shift.
Well owngoal is saying otherwise. He said he was saddled with handling 2 games. So don’t know where CSN got their own version from.
— We trained for three, four days
— It is difficult within three days to prepare the team.
— It’s difficult to change things at this limited time.
— We used the same formation at AFCON.
Eguavoen should just go to youtube to disclose his tactics like he did before 2022 AFCON.
Now all our opponents henceforth [especially the away teams] can start fixing their games on date when Nigeria will only be able to train for a day or 2 before meeting them, knowing well Eguavoen is a 1 directional coach who doesn’t know how to mix things up a little to confuse his opponents.
Same thing he did at AFCON, got found out and got booted out…..he still stupidly repeated his 424 1994 wingplay nonsense vs Ghana and got booted out of the WC. Ghana’s coaches even changed tactics, yet he didn’t have any answers to their change of tactics until Ahmed Musa went to wake his brains up.
Now it is Peserio’s 343 he has laid his hands on and watch this space, that is the only formation stuck in his head now.
I am sure he caught Rohr unawares with this 343, just like he caught Egypt’s Coach unawares at AFCON with 424, that is why he could win flawlessly.
I pray we should have amassed enough points to qualify or AFCON before he is found out. Today’s match showed Eguavoen currently has nothing else in his head apart from the tactic he has copied from Peserio. All his subs have been like for like subs. None was tactical. He was still dumbly playing 3 man defence vs a team that has zero initiative in the final 3rd. He removed 2 DMs and replaced them with 2 DMs at a time we needed goals and Osimhen was isolated upfront.
It was in the 90th minute his brain cells sprung to life and then he remembered we needed 2 CFs.
We are doomed if we continue with this man called Eguavoen. Like back then, I’ll tell y’all to mark my words again today.
Dumb TD.
When I said he is still tactically deficient, these people wanted to off my head lol….People are basking in the Euphoria of playing 5 defenders against Benin and Rwanada….Kudos to the team for the results but I can guarantee this in the WCQ we still have to play Rwanda twice in WCQ and they too the group….Those games will be won from the bench especially after they played our strongest team lol.
I can’t**** guarantee this will work in the worlcup as that Rwandan coach won’t be playing neither will Rohe
The WCQ will be in June I guess, when the season must have ended and our boys already on holidays. From history we don’t do too well in June qualifiers. Nigerians should better brace up
As if you all know more about coaching than the coach himself. Nigerians and their endless opinions that lead nowhere! Every coach has a preferred formation that they typically stick to. Now that the coach has changed his formation, you’re all complaining. It’s really something else!
You’ve been clamoring for foreign coaches, but what have they achieved? Let’s not forget that Stephen Keshi won the Nations Cup in 2013. What have the foreign coaches done, aside from Westerhof, who made a costly mistake in the World Cup by losing to Italy despite having a one-man advantage?
You all need to stop criticizing without proper thought or understanding of the game
Hahahaha
…what have your local coaches too done since keshi won AFCON apart from sinking Nigerian football….?
Why not go and wake Keshi up from the grave to come and coach the SE since the rest of you local coaches are crap and a local coach must coach the SE.
keshi didn’t get the SE job by lobbying for it like your current local coaches…..He got Ithe job by virtue of his proven competence, something only foreign coaches currently bring to the table.
The little respect we still have in african football today is thanks to the effors of foreign coaches in the last decade. Even the formation Eguavoen is “sticking to” now was stolen from Peseiro.
And please continue to urge him to “Stick to” one formation. He too should continue blabbing to the whole world about “sticking to 1 formation” for 90mins every match. Our opponents are begining to decode him gradually.
I don’t know how many sensible coaches you have seen “sticking” to the same formation even when it is being shackled by opponents
Even the wise saying goes that only a lunatic does the same things the same way and expects different results.
When our opponents have found him out like a hapless and decimated Tunisia and Ghana did your eyes will open.
Just pray we don’t end up playing draws in our remaining 4 matches.
The noise isn’t unusual despite remaining meaningless….. Therefore, irrespective of the noise here and there, the bottom line is that proud Nigerians who are indeed the real Nigerians are waiting till October for the next round of matches. Sleep is here guys zzzzzzz
Remain blessed @seedorf