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Former Nigeria international Abiodun Baruwa has said if the country continue to have faith in head coach Eric Chelle he will qualify the Super Eagles for the 2030 FIFA World Cup.
Chelle’s Reign As Super Eagles Coach
Chelle was appointed when the Super Eagles were in the middle of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
Unfortunately, Chelle could not secure the ticket as South Africa’s Bafana Bafana clinched the top spot.
Despite finishing in second place the Super Eagles made it to the African qualifying playoff but lost on penalties to Democratic Republic of Congo in the final.
Since coming on board Chelle has led the Super Eagles to win the Unity Cup twice and a third place finish at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.
Also he guided the team to a 2-2 draw with Poland before narrowly losing 2-1 to Portugal, in a double header international friendly matches.
Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Chelle Reviving Super Eagles’ Glory Days; Gusau’s NFF Leadership On Course — Akwuegbu
Speaking to Proudly Austin, Baruwa who was part of the Super Eagles squad to the 1998 World Cup in France, said:“I think he is a good coach for Nigeria. If we stick with him, trust him, he will qualify us for the next World Cup. I believe in that.”
I Still Need To See More Of Arthur Okonkwo
The reign of Chelle as Eagles coach has seen the introduction of young players among which include Wrexham first choice goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo.
The former Arsenal player made his debut for the team against Zimbabwe in their first match at the Unity Cup in May, and kept a clean sheet in a 3-0 win.
Commenting on the emergence of Okonkwo, Baruwa said he still needs to see more of the young goalkeeper.
“I saw him briefly. Ball handling is okay but I need to see more of him because I never watch him with Wrexham,” he added.
“I saw him for a couple of minutes, he is decent, he is doing what he is supposed to be doing. But, it takes time to build to this level.”
Race For AFCON 2027 Ticket
The Super Eagles will be back in action in September when the qualifiers for the 2027 AFCON will begin.
To reach the tournament, Chelle and his team must navigate through a group that has hosts Tanzania, Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau.
By James Agberebi
16 Comments
The issue isn’t just about qualifying Nigeria to the next world cup
What are the plans on ground to ensure that we do better than our previous appearance in the world cup.
Look at what morocco is doing just look at how they have transformed their national teams when will this country wake up and do the needful
I recently talked about how the world cup has changed the life of Cape Verde goalie Vozinha.
Another one whose life is about to change massively is Yan Diomande, the 19 yr old CIV winger.
He produced a fantastic performance against Ecuador. Some pundits say he “destroyed” Arsenal’s Hincapie. And voila! Liverpool have reportedly offered 100 million euros for his services! His club RB Leipzig turned the offer down, holding out for offers in the region of 120 million to 130 million euros. PSG is also interested, and rumour has it that they are ready to shell out that money for the 19 yr old prodigy.
Before the world cup, Diomande was not worth anywhere near 100 million euros. RB Leipzig signed him for 20 million euros from Leganes, and just before the world cup commenced, he was valued at around 75 million euros. After just one good world cup game, the lad is now valued at over 100 million euros!
My point? While players like Vozinha and Diomande are now much wealthier because of good world cup performances, our own SE players were willing to jeopardize their world cup aspirations by boycotting training before the DRC game, all for the princely sum of $10,000 match bonus. Hahahahaha! I laugh in Uzbekistan.
Yes, they deserve to get paid their bonuses. No doubt about that. But look at what they lost in the process! A chance to “sell their market” on the world’s biggest football stage!
World cup dreams down the drain because of peanuts. They allowed NFF Onigbese’s non payment of match bonuses to put sand in their garri.
Now, match bonus dem no see, world cup dem kuku no go.
Penny wise, pound foolish things!
@pompei, bravo!!! Very logical and Erudite painting of the situation SE players have put themselves. Money is not everything. Take note we are not in any way in support of the ever inept NFF .
The fans, the jersey, and even the players’ careers are more important than the peanut match bonuses.
Funny to see them chasing peanuts, while passing up the opportunity to make a truckload.
I suspect Ekong was forced to retire after that playoff debacle. Likely blamed by the NFF for “rebellion” and told pointedly he’ll hardly receive further invitations to play, and then suggested pubic announcement of retirement from the SE to save face and good PR for everyone.
The key factor is not the will of Chelle. It’s obvious. The problem is, will NFF still let greed and financial shortcuts (like looking for a cheap coach like Finidii) derail the goal or get in the way of WC qualification?
Direct your concern/worry to Gusau and his goons, not Chelle.
They should be the ones giving the needed assurances cos tomorrow they might start thinking of dismissing Chelle and hiring one of his Nigerian assistants to save money.
Whatever we are doing about qualifying for the next world cup, we should make sure qualifying for the next Olympics is a MUST.
How…? Why….?
Just looking back now, we didn’t qualify for 2004 Olympics and ended up not qualifying for the 2006 WC
We didn’t qualify for the 2020 Olympics and somehow ended up not also qualifying for the world cup
We also didn’t qualify for the 2024 Olympics and somehow ended up not qualifying for the 2026 world cup.
The only exception has been the 2012 Olympics and 2014 world cup.
But 3 out of 4 times is 75% probability rate and that is too often to ignore..
So what could be the link between the 2….? I’ve been trying to look between the lines as to why 75% of the times in the last 2 to 3 decades we didn’t qualify for the world cup after failing to qualify for the Olympics.
No 1 I think would be administrative. The buck has and will always stop at the desk of the administrators. When you see the successes of the likes of Morroco and Senegal on the continent, and the likes of France, Spain and Argentina, on the world stage, as well as the failures of the likes of Nigeria, Cameroon, Italy the source and inspiration behind it all stems from no where else but the FAs of these countries.
In the case of Nigeria, somehow the same incompetent leadership that supervised our olympics qualifying is usually the same one that supervises our world cup qualifying. It was Galadima/Ogunjobi and co in 2004/06, Pinnick and co in 2020/22, and Gusau and co in 2024/26. Simply put, if you are useless, you are useless. Any adminstration that shows lack of capacity and inability to supervise the successful qualification of our U23s for their version of the world cup simply cant be trusted to supervise the U23s for the world cup. For all it will take, can Gusau not return as NFF president please. Our qualification for 2030 heavily depends on that.
No 2 that comes to mind is the opportunity of a quality player pool that non qualification for the Olympics denies the SE for the next 2 years. Oh yes…..every olympic team consists of 18 of the best U23 players the country can muster at the time (if well selected). Sometimes some established SE players, sometimes 3 overaged players, some fringe SE players too may be in that mix…..the 96 team has about 5 established SE players, the 2000 team also had about 5, the 2008 team had 1 or 2, the 2016 team had about 3 or 4, but be as it may, there would be as much as 13 or more new guys getting top level international competition experience thereby widening the pool of players available for the next 2 years leading to the world cup qualifying series. The likes of Morroco and Senegal has benefited heavily from this and hence have progressively refreshed their senior national teams without dropping levels.
No 3 the Olympics is a top level competition in world football that exposes players to global scouting and new opportunities. It also provides an avenue to players to gain top level international football experience similar to world cup. Players become way better after participating in the Olympics than before. While those who have previously played at the U17 and U21 levels get the opportunity to climb further up the ladder by featuring in the U23s. Fringe players in the main SE team who are within the age limit also get to feature on the big stage and shake off their international novitiate. As the U23 team is a mini super eagles team, a successful U23 team often provides not just a team B, but a team B that can challenge the team A in number and in might. Thus we may not need to experiment with greenhorns (a la Taminu et al) during world cup qualifiers nor bank on unserious ones (a la Boniface et al). Competition for places will be tougher, team chemistry wouldn’t be a problem and the necessary experience and exposure to football at the highest level wouldn’t be lacking. And if there’s a need for change of coaches mid way during the world cup qualifying series, the coach of the U23 team will come handy……rather than handing the reins over to a complete green horn after months of searching (a la Finidi).
It’s no news that our failure at youth level for the past decade has robbed the SE of today of a large pool of talents to draw from, inherently stagnating the team. The wisdom in prosecuting the last international friendlies window with fresh faces seems to have brought back new life into the team with competition for spots now primed to be more fierce.
Notwithstanding, with the larger chunk of the current SE already on the wrong side of their 20s with zero fight and motivation left in them. We can’t rely on them to self-determinedly bulldoze their way to the next WC.
The earlier we slashed the average age of the team ahead of 2030, the better. There can’t be a better way to do that than by ensuring by all possible means, playing at the next Olympics is a MUST.
The next choice of NFF president is as important as the next choice of coaches for the u23 national team as well as the timing of the appointment. You employ a coach 2 or 3 weeks before U23 Afcon qualifiers and expect him to wave magic raising a new team from the scratch, good enough to breeze past others who have been camping 6 months before…..?! Hellooo…..??! This is not the early 90s. These days the average home base Nigerian player is no better talent wise than the one in Uganda, Tanzania or Liberia. The era of banking on raw talent and the name “Nigeria” to intimidate opponents on the continent is long gone.
Coaches must be appointed early, scouting must be done extensively and meticulously, camping has to be regular and preparations have to be high level and top gear way ahead of the qualifiers. Some youth tournaments went down in Europe few weeks ago and the likes of CIV and DRC presented U20 and u23 teams……. already they are 5 steps ahead.
Lets be honest, when we were winning youth tournaments we were cheating with overage players. What put a stop to us winning youth tournaments was the use of MRI wrist scans technology scans to determine age. By 2016, 26 players out of a Nigerian U17 squad of 60 – nearly 50%, failed mandatory MRI scans.
Secondly, as this technology became more widespread other countries started taking the U-17 World Cup seriously. Since then Nigeria has not won shi shi.
The other sources for Nigerian players are Nigerian-born academy talent sent overseas, and diaspora Nigerians. The former are very young talent like Zadok Yohanna who are then inculcated in European structured football.
On the latter, Nigeria was one of the first African countries to exploit diaspora talent and Nigerians playing in European leagues (as far back as Samuel Okwaraji). Our success from the 1990s to date can be traced to any one of these three factors.
The point is Nigeria today is not the only country with talented youth, talent scouts also scope Ghana, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. And a lot of African countries have diaspora players, it is this that explains the rise in African football of Comoros and Cape Verde.
In fact these other countries do not have the NFF who appoint coaches just before, in the middle and near the end of qualifiers. They did it in Qatar qualifiers when they sacked Rohr, they did it twice in US qualifiers when Peseiro withdrew and Finidi was sacked.
It is NFF arrogance, over 30 years since the 1990s, they became used to success without effort on their part not realising the world of African football has changed. Without proper organisation and renewed investment in football in Nigeria, we will lose the diaspora players.
While Senegal is able to attract its young 18 year old diaspora talent like Ibrahim Mbaye, we rely on mid-20 footballers that are desperate for one last chance at glory. And who can blame them, when corrupt administrators are the rule, is it any surprise that Ebereche Eze and Michael Olise shunned numerous entreaties to play for Nigeria.
IF we continue to be parasitic on the efforts of others by poaching overseas talent without making the investment and laying the groundwork to develop football in Nigeria, we will fail to qualify for World Cups.
I beg to disagree with you with respect to MRI.
As a matter of fact, MRI has been more of a blessing to us since its introduction in 2009. We’ve got to 3 U17 WC finals and won 2 within 6 years of its introduction, and have produced more mass U17 graduates into the Super Eagles than ever before.
The reason why we are not doing well of late can be traced to Pinnick and his successor Gusau. They single-handedly murdered youth football in Nigeria. we used to have the national U13 and U15 program under Aminu Maigari and Sani Lulu, that program produced back-to-back U17 World champions. Both teams were MRI compliant, with players who would take a break from camp to go write promotion examinations in their secondary schools.
That program was abandoned by Pinnick and Gusau as cost cutting measures. For almost a decade now, U17 coaches are only appointed 4 to 6 weeks to the commencement of WAFU B championship, which serves to produce only 1 zonal representative for the U17 AFCON. Of course, in a zone where you have Ghana and CIV (who themselves are youth football powerhouses) you can always expect Nigeria not to win every 2 out of 3 tournaments…..not when coaches are only appointed 6 weeks prior.
Manu Garba was coach of the U17s for nearly 2 years and played nearly 81 friendlies leading to winning the U17 World cup. Amuneke, one of his assistants succeeded him and also had so much time to scout and build a team from those who couldnt make Manu’s team (such as Kelechi Nwakali), the national U15 team (such as Amos, Obasi and Orji) and new entrants (such as Osimhen and Chukwueze)
So there used to be a progression and timely preparations in decades past. It was in the last decade Pinnick and Gusau destroyed everything. And their destructive hands were not only limited to the U17s……..our U20s, U23s and CHAN have also been treated the same way too.
Lets not go into the corruption and laziness of the so-called technical department of the NFF as it is currently constituted, or the fact that even our local clubs have become a dump of some sort for crap footballers until the likes of Remo, Sporting Lagos and Inter Lagos came on board to change the landscape as regards talent discovery and development, plus the emergence of other private academies like Ikon Allah and GBS who have picked up from where the likes of Pespi FA, 36 Lions and Ebiede stopped.
The moment we can get it right in terms of administration and management of our youth football, we will bounce back in style, MRI or no MRI.
And the earlier we get our U23s functioning too, the better for us. as it stands now qualifying for the next Olympics, or not, will provide a strong indication of our potential to qualify for the next World Cup
The people leading us knows what they are doing, just imagine, our age grade teams that has been our pride for years before now have been failing for some time now, and no one is saying anything.
We have been saying this for years now let our government invest in sport there are lots of kanu’s and okocha’s in the street wasting.
It is high time we stop godfatherism when it comes to selecting players, this people are killing our football we need to wake up
We need lots of infrastructures for sport, Nigeria as a whole our largest stadium is just 64, thousand only with this we can’t host a major footballing competition very very bad for us.
Investing in sports will solve a lot of problems in this country including security.
Let me just say this, I support Chelle. After the nightmare of Finidi-George and Peseiro (even his friend and recommender Mourinho isn’t taking him to Real Madrid).
After AFCON, Chelle was riding high, but the last match against Portugal exposed tactical deficiencies. When you’re playing against a midfield strong team like Portugal, you shouldn’t be trying to match them in midfield like Chelle attempted. Instead, the long ball should have been used more extensively against the Portuguese defence.
On three occasions Nigeria played the long ball, the first almost led to a goal but for Akor’s selfish play, the second did lead to a goal and the third was messed up by Chukwueze.
I think Chelle should get more realistic about his worth. Pochettino took the USA from a pretty mediocre team to one that is among the middle ranks of football nations, and he is not in the running to be Real Madrid coach. I would say Pochettino has achieved more with the US than Chelle has achieved so far with Nigeria with admittedly more limited opportunities.
I think you are being rather harsh with Chelle . Chelle finished 3rd at the afcon, playing the best and most attractive football. Since then , he has shown his evolution by embarking on a squad deepening exercise by strengthening the a postion in the team. We havr gone from a team that was being walloped 4-0 by the portuguese team to losing narrowly to them recently and going toe to toe with them. We can boast of top qulaity options in the goal keeping department. We have a pool of goal keepers that include Okoye, Okonkwo, Nwabali .
In the midfield , he has convinced highly rated Ozoh to join the eagles and most likely as a replacement for Ndidi. He has brought in yusuf and nnadi in central midfield and news from the grapevine indicates that he is looking for an attacking midfiellders
In defense we now have depth by bringing in Fernandez as cover for bassey. He was bold to use Federicks despite many calls not to. Nwaiwu is a good addition. He has brought in bewene and is working on adding isaac james.
In attack, he is working on george ilenekhina and peter prosper. In my opinion he has done remarkably in his short stint.
For the attacking midfield , the obvious option is shola shoretire. The minute he brings these players , it will be difficult to stop Nigeria.
Chelle is the best coach we have had for a generation. However, that statement is partially a reflection of our own incompetence in appointing ill-suited, ill-qualified and ill-motivated coaches. Peseiro and Rohr were ill-motivated, while Eguavoen and Finidi were ill-suited and ill-qualified respectively.
As to Portugal, DR Congo shattered the myth last week. Their well-earned draw against Portugal provided a grounded context to measure Nigeria’s performance, and the difference was tactical.
I praise everything Chelle is doing but I also caution him to ground his expectations -financial and otherwise, in comparative reality. We are watching teams at the WC (Japan, US, Cape Verde), whose coaches have taken them from obscurity a decade ago, past also rans like Nigeria, to a new level of global excellence.
An AFCON third place commendable as it is, is but the foundational achievement we expect.
We played Portugal in their home with an experimental side.
On a neutral ground like the world cup and with our full squad on parade,AINA,OSAYI-SAMUEL,OSIMHEN,LOOKMAN,FREDERICK it will be a different situation under a manager like Chelle.
Portugal had the full compliment of their squad,coupled with a vociferous crowd cheering them in Lisbon,we had a couple of new and inexperienced players,so that slim lose does not make Portugal better,because if there was a return leg in Nigeria,we may have taking our own pound of flesh!
We struggled and toiled against Rwanda and couldn’t defeat the likes of Zimbabwe and Lesotho with some of those names on home soil, and you talk of taking a pound of flesh against a Portuguese team that was playing at gear 2 in order not to cop injuries on the eve of the World Cup…….??
Apart from Christian Akpan and substitutes Bewene and Otele, who else on the entire 23-man squad hasn’t been to the AFCON with Nigeria, that you call it an experimental side….??
You guys just love making yourselves happy ey…..LMAOooo
Helloooo…..let’s face facts…..let the full complement of the current SE play the full complement of the Portuguese team even in the moon, we ain’t getting a point off them with Chelle in charge. That guy melts tactically once faced with a tactically above-average opponent.
A squad comprising 20 out of 23 of our super regulars is no experimental side. With a better coach, we definitely do stand a chance.
Golden Child, I agree overwhelming with all your comments above, and those of Greenturf too.
Imagine someone calling Peseiro and Rohr ill-motivated when their Afcon and world cup qualification (Rohr) speaks differently.
Even Eguavoen performed brilliantly n the Afcon group stages before complacency crept in in the R of 16. As for Funidi, he was partly frustrated by the NFF not allowing him to call up quality players for the qualifiers and because he unwisely fell out with Osihmen.
Ill-motivated and ill-suited my arse!