Ademola Lookman has said the Super Eagles can be proud of their display at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, Completesports.com reports.
Eric Chelle’s side finished third in the competition, following their 4-2 penalty shootout win over the Pharaohs of Egypt on Saturday night.
Lookman insisted that the Super Eagles did so many things right in Morocco.
“It was a good competition from us. We scored a lot of goals, we created a lot of chances. We played some good football.We can be proud of what we have done,” Lookman said after the game with Egypt.
The Atalanta winger also praised the unity in the team.
“There’s unity in the team. We fought for each other, long may it continue,” he added.
4 Comments
Live FIFA rankings updates just ranked us 3rd in Africa and 26th in the world. It will be official tomorrow but the jump from 38th last time is massive.
Well done Chelle. We outfoxed Algeria and Egypt who ranked higher in December.
Bigger heights Eagles.
We didn’t even lose to Tunisia and Morocco.
FIFA rankings are really genuine reflection of football progress.
It can only get better unless NFF becomes ache type
My synopsis of this tournament is threefold, an advice to the coach, an advice for the coaching team and an advice to players.
My advice to Chelle is: Playing tournament football is like playing poker. You have to hide your hand (tactic) in the early stages else you will leave plenty of video evidence of your tactics for later opponents to analyse.
Argentina and Italy arguably two of the best teams with World Cup records always start their group games badly. This focuses attention away from them with analysts usually dismissing their chances.
On the other hand Brazil, England and France always start their group stages rampantly, defeating group opponents by wide margins leaving a trail of video evidence of their playing tactics for later opponents to analyse.
There is no tactic under the sun that does not have a countermeasure. Case in point, how Egypt’s short defenders dealt with the height of Onuachu in defending a cross: The defender simply held the Onuachu’s shirt, headbutted his elbow and fell to the ground. Result: Disallowed goal and yellow card. Given another chance he would have got Onuachu sent off!
Peseiro’s team of 2024 performed abysmally during the group stages. This led everyone to dismiss their chances and focus on other teams. By the knockout stages he had refined a defensive tactic that took him all the way to the final.
Meanwhile, Eguavoen’s team of 2022 was more rampant in the group stages with everyone predicting them as cup favourites. They crashed out at the knockout stage having provided their opponents with enough video evidence that Moses Simon was the main threat on the wing.
Yes, it is hard for a coach to gamble in this way! The only other way is to approach tournaments with at least 3 playing tactics that a coach is confident about, that way your future opponents are left guessing!
To the coaching team, my advice is that you need a specialist ‘set piece’ coach for tournaments. Such a coach would train the team on creating chances from freekicks, corners and throw-ins.
Finally, to the players – not all, but to those that play on the wing [Simon, Chukwueze, Ejuke, Osayi].
Nigerian-born footballers learn their skills playing on street corners, whereas the ‘innit’ boys [Lookman, Bassey, Iwobi, Ryan] are tutored right from the beginning on full-size pitches. This means Nigerian-born footballers are good at close ball control and dribbling, while the ‘innit’ boys are always better at long-passing and crossing the ball. Even Bassey, a defender can ‘whip + curl’ the ball in a cross onto the head of the striker.
The modern game has become tougher for the ‘dribbling’ winger, he is usually marked by two players and given no room to get past his marker. This requires the ‘dribbling’ winger to develop the skills of the ‘whip + curl’ cross, because a ‘crossing’ wing player like Hakimi (or Lookman) does not need to get past his marker to provide service. He just needs space to “whip + curl” a cross into the penalty area – a lesser task than dribbling past a defender.
My advice to [Simon, Chukwueze, Ejuke, Osayi] is to please go and learn how to cross the ball! Especially the ‘whip + curl’. Bruno is the exception as he seems to have acquired this skill – being able to skilfully cross the ball is a requirement for a modern age fullback, but even he is not as good at it yet, as the ‘innit’ boys.
Too many footballers believe in natural talent rather than learning skills. A fatal mistake these days with the availability of technology and specialist skills ‘one-on-one’ coaches. It is not outside the paygrade of a footballer to hire a specialist skills coach during his summer break [Hint…hint!] to learn new skills.
A mediocre footballer willing to learn new skills can achieve greatness case in point David Beckham, a talented footballer willing to learn will always achieve greatness, case in point Ronaldo.
However, if you’re talented and not prepared to learn new skills, you’ll always be a journeyman footballer.
@Tristan,
Thank you for this submission! Well thought out.
I can only say I am proud of lookman especiall your calmness, maturity and composure when osimhen tried beating you up on the pitch….