Former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president Amaju Pinnick has disclosed that he would have ensured the Super Eagles qualified for the 2026 World Cup if he were still in charge of Nigerian football.
Pinnick made this known in an interview with Sunday Oliseh’s Global Football Insights show, where he expressed disappointment that Nigeria failed to capitalize on the expanded World Cup format, which allows up to ten African nations to qualify for the tournament to be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
“I honestly didn’t see this coming,” Pinnick said. “With ten African teams qualifying, there is really no basis for Nigeria not to be among them.”
The former NFF boss recalled Nigeria’s successful qualification for the 2018 World Cup, despite being drawn in what was considered one of the toughest groups in African qualifying history.
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“In 2018, we had the toughest group ever; we had all the AFCON winners. If I were there, definitely, Nigeria would have qualified.”
“Algeria hadn’t lost in over 20 games, Cameroon were defending champions, Zambia were champions, and Nigeria was the least considered,” he said. “But guess what? We qualified with two games to spare, and we didn’t sleep.”
He also referenced the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, where Nigeria narrowly missed out following a playoff defeat to Ghana under the away-goals rule.
“We did the same work in 2022, but the format changed to head-to-head. Nobody gave Ghana a chance, but they came through. We didn’t lose that tie; we were eliminated on away goals.”
1 Comment
You cannot be serious.