AFCON
‘WE ARE YET TO FIND RHYTHM’, MIKEL ADMITS
An avalanche of criticism is only to be expected for Nigeria who are still battling to find their rhythm at the Africa Cup of Nations, captain John Obi Mikel said after Sunday’s shock loss to Madagascar.
The 2-0 defeat meant Nigeria were forced into second place in Group B and could now be up against fellow heavyweights Ghana in the next round.
Madagascar’s victory was one of the great shocks in the tournament’s history and has not gone down well with Nigerian supporters.
“Obviously, the criticism will come from our people that we love. But this is football, you are going to get criticised. We have to take the criticism and improve,” Obi Mikel said.
“We didn’t play well and I think that in the tournament so far we haven’t really found our way to play,” he added.
“But we’ve won two games and lost one now. It’s better this happened now than in the knockout stages. Now we know as a team we have to improve, we have to do better.”
A defensive error allowed Madagascar to grab the early lead and a wicked deflection from a free kick gave them a second goal early in the second half against a Nigeria side who had already secured qualification and were experimenting with their line-up
“It’s normal to change the team as we were already qualified and we have 23 squad members and a lot of them deserved to play,” coach Gernot Rohr added.
“We wanted to give some rest to some of them since we had qualified before the game so I think in the mind of some players, it was not so important to win.
“But the beginning of the match, the gift for the first goal made Madagascar very strong and I have to say they deserved the victory, with their counter football and very good defensive organisation. We couldn’t find solutions,” the Nigeria coach said.
-Reuters
The Libyan Football Federation (LFF) has sacked its Serbian coach, Milutin Sredojević who is popularly known as Micho.
This is coming ahead of Libya’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations clashes with Nigeria next month.
Paradoxically, Sports Village Square gathered that the coach’s contract was only recently renewed for six months before the axe fell on the Serbian.
His sack was precipitated by the results obtained in their teo matches of the AFCON qualifiers.
Libya drew 1-1 with Rwanda at home and lost 2-1 away to Benin Republic despite beig a goal up at half time.
The Libyan side, Mediterranean Knights are due to play against the Nigeria Super Eagles in Uyo on 6 October while the return leg holds on 14 October at the 11 July Stadium in Tripoli.
According to information Sports Village Square gathered from Tripoli, the Mediterranean Knights’ coach, Micho led the Libyan national team to win nine matches since taking over in October of last year, he failed to build a strong team due to his poor choices.
He also took a risk with the footballers chosen in the AFCON qualifiers, and the result was shocking to the Libyan sports audience.
According to sources close to the Libyan Football Federation, there is a strong tendency to sign a national coach to lead the Libyan team during the remaining qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations.
CAF President Patrice Motsepe has lashed out at Ghana and some other African countries whose home grounds were recently banned from hosting CAF matches owing to inadequate facilities. He made the remarks in Nairobi, Kenya during a press conference,
After the MatchDay 2 of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, CAF ruled Ghana’s Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi as being inadequate to host international matches. Being the only approved ground in the country, Ghana will now look towards either Cote d’Ivoire or Togo for their remaining home matches of the Afcon qualifiers.
Other African countries without approved home grounds are: Djibouti, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Gabon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, São Tomé and Burundi.
Motsepe voiced his frustration over the recurring issue of nations being unable to host home games.
“Nothing frustrates me more than a national team or club side having to play home matches outside,” he stated.
He stressed the significance of playing in front of home fans, adding, “You can’t grow football if the national teams or club sides aren’t playing in front of their home fans.”
Motsepe reiterated CAF’s commitment to working with countries to ensure they have at least one suitable stadium to host international fixtures.
“Our conversations in every country are to make sure there is at least one stadium capable of hosting a CAF category C game,” he emphasized.
The on-going CAF AFCON Cote d’Ivoire 2023 Coaches Symposium in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire has brought together, the last three coaches that handled the Nigeria national football team.
Gernot Rohr, Jose Peseiro and Austin Eguavoen are part of the the elite coaches currently gathered in Abidjan.
Gernot Rohr whose tenure of 5 years and 55 matches is the longest ever by any coach in Nigeria, is currently handling Nigeria’s Africa Cupof Nations and World Cup qualifying rivals, Benin Republic. He was succeeded in the interim by Austin Eguavoen who is currently having another interim stint.
Peseiro left his position after the Africa Cup of Nations
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