Super Eagles vice-captain William Troost-Ekong has apologised to Nigerian fans following the team’s failure to secure a place at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, reports Completesports.com.
The Super Eagles forced the Black Stars of Ghana to a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their playoffs encounter at the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja on Tuesday night.
The three-time African champions missed out on qualification on away goal rule.
Thomas Partey put the Black Stars ahead on 10 minutes, before Troost-Ekong levelled scores from the spot in the 23rd minute.
“To all Nigerians, on behalf of the team, we want to apologise for not securing the World Cup ticket.
Despite giving it everything possible, it wasn’t meant to be,”Troost-Ekong wrote on his Facebook page.
“First and foremost, as Nigerians, we share your emotions and we take our responsibility as a group.
“We sincerely thank the Nigerian fans for their overwhelming support, the NFF President who did everything possible to make the qualification happen and of course the Minister.
“A bitter pill to swallow but believe me we will be back better and stronger!”
Copyright © 2024 Completesports.com All rights reserved. The information contained in Completesports.com may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the prior written authority of Completesports.com.
COMMENTS
We’re all hurt.
But, I’ll somehow blame the NFF for mismanaging the Team… So much confusion and controversy, but hey, it’s football, we move…. prepare and come back stronger for Canada/Mexico/US 2026
Bros shift jor….
Common TUNISIA 2nd eleven you guys can’t hit the cross bar come to talk of scoring…
Against Ghana you people spent 180 useless minutes without registering any goal from open play until the ref saw our plight and manufactured that cheap penalty just to reduce the shame.
Which bitter pills to swallow abeg you guys should move to one side jooo.
We need complete overhauling of some you guys.
Useless Bunch Abegy go wit your yeye apology!.
At least you try small Ekong but for real you people are a bunch of disappointment!!!!!!!!!!!!
Enough of this foreign born players what is the purpose of them playing and still giving shambolic results…We might as well take chances with Nigerian born players regardless of where they play…Maybe they’d be more patriotic and show urgency….The ultimate blame still lies with Amaju and the technical crew…Bastards. I could barely sleep.
It is too painful Bros no be Small and to Ghana of all people. chai!! e no easy atooool
Amaju is an evil piece of shit. The first thing every Nigerian should be hearing is this morning is the firing of the whole technic crew…..Can you Imagine no official word from the NFF. They think people are stupid, probably thinking everything go cool down after a day or 2. Amaju if them catch u for streets ur own go worse pass cuz u are the architect of the whole failure. 2 midfielders would have helped than keep inviting the 2 old cargos in Ahmed Musa and Ighalo….Massive interference in player selection. The fool even said one time he forced Rohr to include Musa. Ran Nigerian football like his personal business. E no go better for you and people who did this to us.
Enough of this kind of Rubbish comment!!
Troost we gat you. Sad we move on. You guys gave us a lot. Focus now on club duties . We love you all Super Eagles Players.
Ekong is the only one that has apologized at the moment no comments from the coach, or NFF
But ekong why mention NFF and sport minister in your apology note.. Are they more important than the grieving Nigerians fans..
You don’t want to be in their black book..
I don’t know why we Nigerians attack the wrong people.. What concern the Zambian doctor with our failure to qualify.. Why touch him , why beat him.. Those that we should attack we will shake them when they come visiting.. They will bribe us with bag of Rice during election and we would vote for them.. This is why they run Nigeria like their property because they paid for the seat with money and we gave them our vote after collecting money.. Pls this next election we must do better
The Nigerian team is ordinary, the country did them harm by hyping them. Ghana be your nemesis, check records from 1950s coming, 7-0 scoreline all dey. You underrated Ghana because of their poor afcon showing
It is what it is. Osimhen was a warrior , big respect to that lad. As for the technical team, very poor. We need a new goal keeper coach ASAP. This is so sad. My suggestion is that we start scouting for a new goal keeper even from the local league immediately.
_ It’s The Blame Game _
For the first time for me, the players themselves do not owe me an apology. The sports minister telling Gernot Rohr to shut up owes me an apology. The NFF who sacked a coach on the eve of 2 major assignments (Afcon and last stage world cup qualifiers) owes me an apology and are required to resign with immediate effect. Eguavoen, whose defective tactical approach rendered the outfield players impotent and exposed goalkeeping lapses owes me a huge apology. He should now resign his post as Technical Director and recede to obscurity, never to have anything to do with any Nigeria national team ever again.
Okoye and Uzoho (whom I now 100% absolve of critical blame) do have their shortcomings but Eguavoen’s tactical arrangements leaves these goalkeepers badly exposed. Isn’t it ironic and funny how the goal that knocked us out of the Afcon resembles the one that knocked us out of world cup qualification.
The only difference being that Okoye’s view was impeded by a body of defenders. Nonetheless, defensive midfield frailties and inadequate pressing let both goalkeepers down, so I will cut them some slack.
Since games against Guinea Bissau and Sudan, I have been banging the drum that just 2 midfielders in modern football is grossly inappropriate and perilously inadequate.
The 4 forwards are isolated and your midfield is overrun. Eguavoen was clearly out of his depths. He lacked the technical nous and tactical sagacity to take any team to success.
Wing play, wing play is good if you know how to play it. It is an embarrassment to wingplay to describe Nigeria’s approach under Eguavoen as such. It is an aberration to describe Eguavoen’s model as wingplay – wingers with no service, wingers with no space, wingers with no flight.
This Eunuch of a coach got it right against Egypt but could never replicate it in subsequent games.
The errors of his ways continued to be apparent in subsequent games but he lacked the vision to see this and also lacked the ability to implement measures to chart a separate more productive course.
Although Ghana had their 1:1 draw, still they were comfortable to saturate our midfield and even sacrifice 2 strikers upwards – that much confident they were, that much clueless our coaching crew was.
Positives: what positives can I draw from this debacle? I guess in years to come we can say Ghana didn’t defeat us across two legs. Rather they advanced to the world cup on a technicality, an away goals technicality that some continental football associations have already discarded. Perhaps another chip to Nigeria’s battered feathers is the fact that the only 2 times we have failed to qualify for the world cup since our 1994 curtain raiser, these came about due to controversial and archaic technicalities: 1) ludicrous head to head goals difference and 2) stone age away goals rule.
But trust me,this is scant consolation for Nigeria fans at the moment, many of whom are still brooding, many of whom are desperate to hang this monumental failure on the neck of other innocent fans.
Blame game is the order of the day.
But there is one thing I blame: a rotten system overseen by a rotten organization who is not fit for purpose and will continue to drag Nigeria’s football to the abyss. An organization aided and abated by a sports minister who seemed hell bent on interfering and tampering with the running of Nigerian football to the detriment of other sports in his purview.
The future looks very grim and bleak indeed.
We might get banned for 2 years with the death of this man..
If we get banned for 2 years forget the next 2 nations cup, U17 tournament, u20 tournament, u23, the next 2 nations cup, and the 2026 WC…….Amaju deserves to be beaten to a pulp.
Under 17 under 20 that’s what Africans like the most, to cheat and win. If Africa stop the age cheating in the junior tournaments, Africa will have better senior national teams. We cheat the Europeans and beat them when they are young, then they dominate us when they mature
It is all Nigerians and not just the players that should stop bragging. Whenever Rhor come out to say we should be humble before any games. Some nonetity will say he is demoralizing the psychology of the players. We are too fool of ourselves. We are empty barrel that make alot of noise. No wanders the Bible say “God resist the pride”.
Ekong, your apology is accepted. BUT, time for stock-taking. Everyone must ask himself what he has brought to the SE, and to consider the best apology—walk away!
Pinnick became too arrogant, and began acting like a dictator. Imagine the retrogressive decisions he took—terminating Rohr’s appointment, imposing players on hapless coaches whom he appointed, anyway. We all knew his stooges would not dare challenge him. But you can fool some people some time, you can’t fool everybody all of the time. The lid has been let off to reveal his dubious character defects , which historians will pen down for generations unborn to read.
I had assumed that I’m pretty tough, but I’ve been having a wave of nausea and headache since the match.
If he has any iota of respect for Nigerians, he should resign.
Apology not accepted. You cannot come here to say you gave it your all while from indications your performance was below average.
Just stop mocking us with that apology
Please where is omo9ja? He assured us that we would see ‘total football’ under eguaveon. Please how far has this total football helped us? According to simpletons like omo9ja,jimmyball and odegbami, exiting in the round of 16 at AFCON is better than coming 3rd. Also, failing to qualify for the world cup is better than going to the world cup. Jimmyball is still blaming rohr for our failure yesterday despite saying we can fail with our own. He said if uzoho was the keeper against Tunisia, we would have won. I guess majek fashek was our keeper yesterday. Mumu guys
Hahahahaha…..abeg permit me to laugh….LMAOoo. Na real Majek Fashek keep for us yesterday….LMAOooo.
People wey all their own football knowledge end with dropping 1000 names of people who should be in the SE. 1-by-1 all the names wey dem dey drop don turn out to be flukes who are no better than those who are there on ground.
You no see as saliva don choke all of them for throat…..LMAOoo
Shut your mouth you stupid and hypocritical Drey. Pls has Ighalo gone back to retirement or shame never let am talk??? Na you and Rohr wit Picmilk go bring am to consume space for a proper midfielder.
Hehehehehe…..Useless coward….LMAooo
From Nosa on another thread born-by-mistake has switched to Stupiddrey….LMAooo.
Idiot has been serially disgraced and is now losing his senses as always….LMAOoo…very typical of you. You will still switch to 1 naija now in order to masquerade your filthiness the more….LMAOooo.
Go home and eat ehn, your stupid mother is waiting for you
Na Ighalo too consume space for proper midfielder wey make your black brained dumb tin-god fail for AFCON…?? LMAOooo.
Na Ighalo clip the wings of SE over 2 legs against Ghana too abi.
Senseless product of accidental discharge.
I thought you claimed you are not moved by consecutive failure of your Own…..???? LMAOooooo
The effect of the torture of the failures on you can be felt all the way from the south pole…….LMAOOooo
Senseless filthy multifaced liar.
Go to another thread and change name to insult Dr.Drey ehn….LMAOooo. That is how madness starts. God has not started punishing you and your failure united group yet ehn….just wait and see.
In moment of utter dessipation of bitterness, you don’t apologize. It is obvious Nigerians are angry but I put it to you when I say some of these people are not real Nigerians. Though your apology is accepted, you should have reserved it till a better time. You all need to take a back seat, ponder on the game and move on with you careers till when called upon. Since S.E couldn’t go further as expected, we say Good luck.
The lineup for the second leg was good, but it was too late. This game was to qualify for the world cup meaning you have to put your strongest line up. What are the factors
1. Playing time. Are you a regular starter and or consistent
2. Are you effective when you play?
3. The most important one that should put players on the top. Are you playing international tournaments that would bring the experience to the team? Like Champions league, europa league or conference league. Players of this quality should have priority.
Zaidu was benched when he was a regular starter for porto and played in the champions league and europa league. Olayinka is a regular, plays in the europa league and is a grind it out player, I always seem him get dirty and is physical too along with Awoniyi. Sadiq is a regular starter along with Ajayi. Ekong is a terrible defender, he cant compete in the premier league, stay getting caught. Chukwueze have been coming off the bench for villarreal because all he do is dribble. Kelechi is not a starter he is a support role to Vardy. Osimhen as much as I like him he brings his napoli personality to super eagles with rushing his play, not finishing well, complaining and looking for fouls before even trying to finish a play. Dennis can score goals, but similar to what Yaya said when he is not involved in scoring he wont do anything, and I witnessed this game, he doesn’t track back, but he loves getting yellow cards for fun without even trying. This team didn’t have enough time to get to know each other well, build partnerships and team work. When I watched them play it was no coordination, like nobody was linking up. Injuries played a role in this as well.
But I never seen so many people out of sync. So many new players were brought on in such short notice, it was for the qualifiers and then hopefully the world cup. If it was a year ago the team would of been in better sync. It was the same with rohr he always changed the lineup and the team had poor chemistry, like 6 different goal keepers called up. Rohr was good for bringing mixed biracial players Africans especially Nigerians love so much. It was bound to happen of rohr being mentioned if this team didn’t go through.
People expect Nigeria to dominate because the country has the largest population in Africa but at the end of the day its Ivory Coast and Cameroon which are footballing nations. Cameroon made it through. Ivory coast and Cameroon had generational players and not only that, a lot of African players say they look up to Drogba or Eto’o. I just cant see a team going forward having Okcha still talking like he did something in his career. I don’t even hear much from Drogba or Eto’o. But at the end of the day, Ghana were expected to lose so there was no pressure. There was a lot of pressure for Nigeria because they were expected to win, but they folded after believing in their own hype, same as the music industry. I prefer Chris Hughton who has premier league/english league experience and knowledge than rohr from the German league which is only bayern dominated while other teams cant even make it farther in the champions league. But like I said, European experienced coaches are important, Nigeria cant even get a coach with european coaching experience or part of the technical staff. Its easy to blame the goalkeeper when they conceded the away goal that made Ghana win.
Where is that Odegbami of a person?????????
Our Local Content Rubbish Coaches”, Ex – Internationals, Sunday Dare and NFF president who clamored for the sacked of Rohr cost us. The above mentioned people destabilized and killed the morale of the team. “ We opened our eyes wide and sacked a coach that produce results without headache” in the name of “ oh he’s not playing beautiful football, oh he’s too stiff, oh blah, blah, blah. In Nigeria, when it comes to making the right decisions we always struggle, I don’t know why.
Is it only odegbami? Where is egu? At least ado has address the press.
Egufailure, egubadluck. He removed sugar from the mouth of se fans and replaced it with bile.
Later he will come out to tell us that world cup failure is a bitter pill to swallow.
Since you gather homebase for that friendly against mexico I knew you are up to no good for us.
I believe egu is secretly fooling the NFF that is capable to do the job at all cost when he knew he has nothing to offer.
We shouldn’t really blame players, eguaveon and the people that hired eguaveon are the guys that are to be blamed, talents alone can’t win you games, you need good tactics, yesterday it felt like we had no coach, even if Dennis and the others are average, its not amartey that would be too difficult for him to handle. No matter how bad Dennis is, the only player better than him in ghana is partey, lets not be too sentimental and put blames on players, go and check Denmark squad if you think i am sounding stupid, and see what they have been able to achieve recently, without erikson. That being said, i think we must flush out guys like ekong, balogun, musa, ighalo, uzoho, abdulahi, even aribo(man’s too unstable), omeruo should be on the bench,ola aina has grown i am very happy, our new defensive partnership should be Ndah and aweziem, we should also try looking within our league for defenders and goal keepers, striker and midfield department is not really strong in Npfl i believe. For a creative midfielder,we must struggle to get one of olise and eze, while waiting for foolish Nwakali to grow up.
Don’t mind Nwakali very foolish… He has talent more than Osimhen and Chukwueze but has refused to grow up…
I think Ejaria will have been more useful than Aribo… that Aribo dude the play like say na spaghetti full him belly. Very weak and ineffective 10.
THE NFF HAS DONE WELL IRRESPECTIVE OF OUR UNFORTUNATE LOSS. BUT MY POST IS FOR NIGERIANS TO READ AND DIGEST. I WILL ENTERTAIN ANY FORM OF RESPONSE. THANKS.
We must try as much as possible to be discerning at the moment. Euro 2020 champions Italy failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar after a 1-0 loss to North Macedonia in the qualifiers at home. I have never read where anger took their fans to an ugly crescendo to the extent of inflaming and exploiting the gullible minded. Do you people want to burn the country? And what will be your gain? These are pertinent questions.
The super eagles didn’t qualify for the mundia like some other countries is the stack reality but I tell us there are better days ahead.
Now we have a better chance to explore the local contents in our domestic league. The coaching crew who haven’t really relaxed in their jobs should be tasked to look inwards in order to raise local players that are capable of defeating not just Africa in AFCON23 but the World in 4 years time. We have a great chance ahead!!!
It obvious everyone is unhappy but just like your very selves, I share in your pains. God bless Nigeria.
Mr Pius with due respect we’re not Italians if they like make them no qualify for 20years because they have many other things that make them happy and united but we Nigeria have only one thing that gives us joy that’s football ,So don’t use Italy not qualifying as an excuse for us not to qualify, imagine a wasted generation of future stars,it will take Nigeria years to recover again imagine osehmen our hope of winning African football of the year will no longer win it in his prime age, very painful this country would have do everything possible to qualify but all they no is corruption but common football politics they don’t know ,shame to NFF,COACH AND PLAYERS,it will never be well with our National team again,Fans will never waste their time watching bunch of mediocre players
The way we feel about the situation is understandable but let me also thank you for your response. I would like to tell us that it will be well with our national team very soon.
We will show maturity. There is need to calm those who are severely pained. As a matter of fact, none can be blamed over such feelings.
Italy is better than us in FIFA ranking. I listened to Roberto Mancini, the Italian coach on skynews and the man vowed to stay on as Italy boss after their World Cup failure. These were his words… “We need to start again with a new cycle. We have important matches coming up. We will certainly introduce younger players already in June for the Nations League.”
And in our own case, we should have commenced preparations for the next cup of nations in the same June but I can barely see fans discussing about that. That is very bad. How do we contribute to the success of the S.E in the forthcoming matches should be our major concern. In that wise, I am in support of coach Eguavoen looking inwards to our local league. We need to have a balance and besides that, the NFF needs to urgently come up with a print in that wise.
Pius Obemhen, I hope Nigerians would reply you if they are in disagreement otherwise, you said it all. The local content angle needs to be looked into and that is now for sure.
I remember it was this man who was writing about The Belgium Blueprint and even wanted the NFF to work on it. We can never leave the local content thrust of this administration and begin to look for short cuts in form of appointing foreigner to run our football, that will be set back in our football administration. I think we should tone down before we throw away the baby with the bath water. Eguavoen, Amuneje, Yusuf, Hobo and Aigbogun should go to the villages now and start to look for raw talents that is the only way. Okocha, Amokachi, Finding, Adepoju, even Cerezo, Amuneke were all raw talents of that era.
Point of correction, I wanted to write Amuneke and Yobo.
Thanks for the acknowledgement. Hopefully there is ample time for it now.