Head coach of Nigeria’s Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr, must quickly reinforce his team to forget Sunday’s loss to Algeria and go on to beat Tunisia on Wednesday, some coaches advised in Abuja on Monday.
The coaches said in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that victory on Wednesday would be a good reward for the hard work by the players.
They, however, urged the Super Eagles not to be deterred by the 1-2 loss at Cairo in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) semi-finals.
NAN reports that the Super Eagles, after the loss to the Desert Warriors, will now face the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia on Wednesday in the competition’s third-place match on Wednesday.
Godwin Bamigboye, the FCT Chapter Chairman of Nigeria Football Coaches Association (NFCA), said Rohr and his technical crew colleagues need to reinforce the team for the third-place match.
“The third-place match must end with a win in favour of Nigeria, and the Super Eagles must come back home with the bronze medals.
“They must win their third-place match so that it will be their reward for working hard to reach this stage of the competition,’’ he said.
Akinade Onigbinde, the coach of FRSC Football Club of Abuja, said while the loss was a great disappointment to football lovers in the country, he still regarded the Eagles as good.
“The Eagles have a very good set of players but Rohr did a wrong substitution and the tactics for the game were faulty.
“The players were too slow to defend their side, compared to their opponents.
“But now they need to forget what happened on Sunday night and they should start to plan for the next match which must be a win-at-all-cost.
“We need to encourage them with our prayers so that they will make the country proud in the third-place match and win the bronze medals for the country,’’ he said
Onigbinde however advised the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to involve more home-based players in Nigeria’s future appearances at the AFCON competition.
Ngozi Eze, coach of the Blessed Unity Football Club of Abuja, also said the Super Eagles have performed very well since the beginning of the competition.
“They have been representing the country well since the start of the championship, but it was unfortunate that they lost the game.
“We were all expecting them to put up a good fight like they did against the South Africans and they didn’t.
“Now they need to put in more efforts in their last match of the tournament against Tunisia so that the country will be proud,’’ she said.
NAN reports that the Super Eagles will face 2004 champions, Tunisia in the third-place match at the Al Salam Stadium on Wednesday.
Also, Algeria will take on Senegal in Friday’s final match at the Cairo International Stadium.
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