₦airaland Forum

Mujtahida:
He must earn his place. Bruno was given a chance. Baba grab am with his two hands. He shut down Diaz and Hakimi. Imagine what that would do to his confidence.

Bro, hope say your anger don reduce. No vex for your guy abeg😀😀

About this Aina matter, let's even talk about his fitness despite his return from an injury

Let's even hope he remains the Same player he was and even get better. We can't serve him that position on a platter. He has to work for it and earn it

semid4lyfe:
You are beginning to sound like our blue font guy, TGJ. Pray tell, how is the penalty loss his fault? .

Right from the WCQ Play-offs, the team practised PKs in EVERY training session knowing they were knock-out games and there had to be a winner.

Even at this AFCON, during the Semi-final pre match presser, Chelle was specifically asked by a Nigerian journo if they were training for penalties and he confirmed they were. I also watched various Interviews of our players in which they said they were practising PKs in training just before the round of 16.

Go back and watch the WCQ playoff PSO, Bruno played our best PK. Fast, medium elevation and to the left of the goalkeeper. Obviously, Morocco prepared for the eventuality of PSO, studied tapes of our PK takers (including the WCQ playoff PSO) and their goalie had memorized how our players played PK. That's the reason Bounou stepped to his left rather than dive even before Bruno hit his PK. Unfortunately Bruno hit it tamely down the middle this time, and Bounou recovered and was able to stretch out a hand to stop it.

As per Chukwueze, do you honestly think that was the kinda PKs he was playing in training that Chelle brought him in specifically to take a PK? You sef reason am. Moreover, no matter how well a team prepares for penalty and how proficient they are, a winner must emerge and its just unfortunate we were on the losing side. Me, I can never blame Chelle for the outcome of the game. Our PK takers let him and Nigerians down.

Despite the painful loss, I am proud of the valiant effort of the team. I saw determination, fearlessness, fighting spirit and a "we die here attitude" all of which were missing in the DR Congo game. The team did not fold this time and just go through the motions, and that's in my opinion is our biggest win from the Morocco game.

Eric Chelle has given the Super Eagles a playing identity. He has met the semifinal target the NFF set for him and did so playing exciting and beautiful attacking football. He is still unbeaten in regulation + extra time with thie Super Eagles. He may not have gotten to the final like JP did in Ivory Coast but I regard him as our best coach in the last five years. The Super Eagles need some coaching stability, and I hope he stays and the NFF extends his contract till after the 2028 AFCON.

The 2927 AFCON will be co-hosted by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania but shey una don hear say Morocco is considering hosting the 2028 AFCON as warm-up and preparation for the 2030 World cup that they're co-hosting with Spain and Portugal? This people wan use hosting win two AFCONS sharperly sha. Hopefully, Senegal spoils their planned party in the final just like the Super Falcons did.

Alright

Some journalists actually said Chelle practically waved off the question as to whether they were practicing PK in practice. Hence my take

I have some questions for you semid4lyfe

Do you think ita possible for Chelle to take this team to a place where they are practically unbeatable even with obvious refreeze boas

Also, what did you expect Chelle to have done differently in that match that he didn't do?

Do you think the Egyptians would borrow from Morocco's playback to stifle our midfield tomorrow?

Goke7:
😂 coach say he pick the best you still Dey argue bro na fight? 😂

K

Goke7:
The coach says they practice pks a lot should we doubt him? And even if they don’t the players nko don’t practice pks at their clubs? Chuks and Bruno both play and have played at solid clubs na, they need coach to tell them where their leg and the ball should meet? As how na 😂

I said chelle should identify and.pick the best PK takers. I did not say he should teach them how to play

Read well bro!!

I'm not calming Chelle solely. Chuks and onyeamachi should've converted theirs too but he's the head coach and the buck stops at his table

Mujtahida:
On this thread, I try as much as possible to be respectful to everyone. I know there are times I fail in that regard but nobody here will say I have said something disrespectful to them and after pointing out to me, I persist.

BascoVanVeli this is the second time you are wilfully disrespecting me. The first time you apologized. I let it slide. If my opinions are too sharp for you, ignore them unless my opinion is what gives you life.

This is a public forum. If I say what anyone does not like, disagree with me. There's no need to be disrespectful while doing so. Many people say things I don't like here, things that are painful to me but I either ignore it or disagree within the bounds of mutual respect.

Blueelf trolls us here. It's painful. We let him be. Goke7 makes insinuations about the 94 set in a manner that I don't like. Those guys are my heroes. But should I then disrespect him because I don't find his opinion flattering to them. Between the 94 set and Goke7, who is closer to me? Why should I diss him because of his opinion about them. Aren't there points we agree on? So if he disagrees with me isn't that normal?

I said what I said about Chukwueze. Semid4lyfe disagreed even with a word of caution. No disrespect. I respect that.

BascoVanVeli I swear you cannot stand to my face and say that I am childish. Such a thought will not even scan the remotest regions of your mind. It would have been an utter shameless slugging of execrable words if I hadn't been blocked.

Take your time.

Bro n9 vex oo. My trolling is just fun for me and n9t to personally insult anyone oo

Infact, na people dey insult me pass but I take it in stride because it's just football, no need to get personal all the time.

Love and light Egbon

Goke7:
Abeg this our current players are not made for pks a situation where your two APOTYs don’t even want to take a risk shows it’s better we avoid it.

Unless you bring back Ekong and iheanacho, pks are a go area

Exactly 😀😀

These one will buckle under pressure but I still think the coach ought to know who his best 7 penalty takers are in the squad by now sha

Icon4s:
You finally have a voice, after we lost.

The fact that Chelle was not beaten from open play, shows he was not conquered. That team is still work in progress. I still maintain if we make it to the intercontinental play-offs and then the world cup the team will be hard to beat. We need to inject more quality and creativity into that midfield and wings positions so we can vary, more, our approach to attacks.

Baba mi, not so

I've been talking about the fact that chelle had just one tactic and stuck to it and I asked thesupernerd what his response will be if a better coach figures him out

However, I agree with you that he's a good coach but fifa may never give us that spot. We would have made a better statement had we won the AFCON

Goke7:
All those our attacks that ref was breaking all in the name of fouls would have resulted into more shots on target so I don’t buy that excuse of we only could get one or two shots. The whole officiating was targeted at our dominance pattern and am now actually questioning the notion that the Moroccans were better. See that run that Bruno was making and he got pulled over by Diaz that definitely was heading for a cross to our strikers what about that run too from Ademola that was cut short by the ref all in the name of a throw in that was never was. Those kind of runs gave Ademola the number of assists he has in this competition so the match was a script well acted not any tactical game. That was the only way the morrocans could contain us yet they couldn’t score. So how was Chelle tactically beaten?

The Moroccans should forever be grateful to chuks and Bruno for their unfortunate loss of pks that saw them through

Okay, you made some very valid points

But you'll agree that the penalty loss is partly his fault

Is he saying that our past penalty failures didn't teach him to prep these guys for that outcome?

See I'm not trying as much as possible t9 blame him because I think he should be given a long term contract with as much support as possible but Chelle too mess up small. Although I've no doubt that he'll improve as a coach in the coming future

Goke7:
In our game against Algeria our coach was dynamic make we no lie he had different approaches for that game. The terrible officiating in the semi finals affected whatever approach we brought.

I agree about the officiating but we could only register 1 shot on Target and 2 shots overall..

This is the same thing the Algerians are saying that we condemn them for. Blaming the ref

I'm not a coach but elven I expected the ref to be very boased. I mean it's obvious that Morocco will be served this trophy on a platter

Was the ref biased? YES

Was chelle tactical enough? NO

In the first half, you saw we were figured out and didn't make the necessary changes in the 2nd half early enough.

Although i .Just give kudos to the marked impr9vementa we saw in the team this AFCON

But he needs to be willing to take a bit more risk in making changes as soon as possible

I'm of the opinion that if he'd switched to wing play with Ejuke subbed in, we would've hit those guys unexpectedly and may have snuck away with a win

As foe the officiating, let Morocco continue. Sheba world cup dey come, let me see them wiggle their way to the finals with officiating..nobody send their papa

Icon4s:
I don't just know, but I am not really pained by this Morocco defeat. There were certain AFCON Semi-Final loses that affected me psychologically for days, but not this one.

Maybe because of their overall performance since the take-over by Eric Chelle.
FIFA should just give us that play-off slot so we can continue with this build up
This coach, with this crop of players fit do the unthinkable at the world cup

Chelle was figured out in AfCON

You think other world class coaches at the world cup won't figure him out?

Boss, they won't do more than second round

semid4lyfe:
Baba, it is true.

I was on Oma Akatugba TikTok live session after the squad release and I asked this question, and Oma confirmed it, and even justified Maduka decision saying based on club and form, Maduka should be #1 and shouldn't be chopping bench for a goalkeeper in the South African league.

I dey chop eba. E get one epistle wey I wan write. Make I finish fiery

You see nigerian journalists??

Let me finish first

@ thesupernerd, do you know this guy?

do4luv14:
Can you blame them, who would wanna rate us with the way our football is being run by those people in glass house

You're right. It's a pity

forgiveness:
Please, don't drag CAF President and CAF. We still get appeal for FIFA ooooo.

CAF did very well in the organization of this tournament. The officiating was superb.

Drag him o, don't drag him oo

It won't go our way.

Would've made a stronger case for ourselves had we won

TheSuperNerd:
From outside the box. Please can the NFF sort out this guy's nationality confusion and get him into my next Afcon Squad abeg!!! Chelle needs bombers like this.

I thought he was called upon once upon a time

semid4lyfe:
to

Elf, if you ever post Okoye's name on this thread and advocate for his callup, I will haunt you on this thread, in real life and in your dreams.

Maduka Okoye is a lilly-livered chicken, a traitor and a saboteur. As far as I am concerned, he should be axed from the Super Eagles forever.

That guy opted out of the AFCON squad because his demand to be first choice goalie was refused ,saying he preferred to play regularly for his club than sit on the bench at the AFCON.

That stunt he pulled is tantamount to blackmail and sabotage of the team's AFCON campaign because at the time he opted out, Nwabali was nursing an injury and it was uncertain if he'd be fit for the AFCON.

He made a decision and I respect that but he should also live with the consequences of his decision.

I didn't know this semid

No be fight na bro. Chill 😁

On a more serious note, I heard about this but wasn't so sure about the news because I doubted it's veracity

But if true, he should stay where he is

Goke7:
Osayi had to pass a late fitness test to play the game yesterday. I heard it from some foreign analysts, in fact, in the game against Algeria dude was limping to complete that game.

My point is, Aina can't simply walk into our starting line-up easily again; he has to fight for that shirt now, and the team is looking more competitive as we now have more options. Who would have thought that a whole Chukwueze will chop bench tire at this afcon. Na this overhype of some certain players dey affect us at times, see the Onyedika we thought was class, now we know he can't displace Ndidi easily. Aina is welcome back anytime, but he must earn it now.

Because he scored a brace against Uganda

Lollll

forgiveness:
Did you read "Aina is world class" in my comment? He is definitely above average and better than Osayi. That's fact. No doubt Osayi showed in this tournament he also good is a contender for the position but with Aina, Aina would had done better.

It's because you mentioned hakim is world class

forgiveness:
Why not? You saw how Hakimi dictated from the back. That is a world class player.

But Aina isn't world class

Anyways...we move

forgiveness:
In a big game like this, Aina would had done better offensively and defensively.

Hmmm

Are you sure ebony?

Sarsaparilla524:
We have to bear with the CAF president and his goons' shenanigans till 2029.

African football is in a quagmire.

Popular votes is how he got it

CASF is a reflection of Africa. The greedy and corrupt get into power.

The next o e will be nothing different my guy

If we develop our football and host, then we can dictate.

I'll say it anywhere, sports is business. Morocco has to be compensated. They lost women's finals, got to Semi Final of world cup and rep african football well. Even won the Arab cup

Of course, if they sneeze, motsepe will come running. They are repping African football well

Let us also put our house in order too

Note: I'm not supporting corruption in anyway

Yesterday was good for me

Because it reminded everyone that we have a real gem in Nwabali

If he can keep his head down, he can be as historical for us as Enyeama was

If the Wrexham guy -Arthur Okonkwo should join, he should act as understudy because he is not as good as Nwabali

Okoye should also be given a look in

Good one Nwabobo. 👍

9JAMac10:
forget about Algeria . Osimhen had a stinker yesterday. I see why people say Osimhen is only good in the air . Man was shuffling his feet when iwobi gave him that good pass towards the Moroccan goal

Broo

Osimhen is good oo

Yes, he can improve on his off the ball movement and positioning

But he's a world class striker ooo

9JAMac10:
I'm thinking about Akor Adams's performance yesterday and laughing to myself

Why?

😀😀

He's decent though but he's not there yet obviously

But midfield sef no try sha. It's not totally his fault

Goke7:
We can give him a benefit of a doubt if he spends one or two more years with this team we will become more dynamic

True.

I am of the opinion he should continue and grow with the team

The root of Super Eagles problems have always been NFF

I believe he'd have learnt from this

realpoacher:
At bolded, that should work too

The man simply had no plan B


Once plan A gets caged, you all are on your own

Bros, maybe you weren't here but I remember asking here on this thread what our plan B was

Even me with little to no coaching knowledge saw that we were too predictable

The response I got was - No team will try to press us or they will leave space

Let me tell you categorically boss, the Egyptians are quite disciplined. And if they also read our game like regragui did, we may end up loosing third place

Chelle needs to up his tactical knowledge come up with a plan B, Plan C or even a Plan D, else we risk becoming too predictable

Goke7:
Chelle, for all his good works, may need a good match reader; either he's making too early substitutions or making them late. I observed after the Tunisia game that he was never in a hurry, as before, to make substitutions, which means he's a good listener, but I feel the NFF technical committee needs to work with him more to get a good match reader for him. Okpala Sylvanus was Keshi's match reader when NFF wanted to frustrate him; they simply remove sylvanus, and the rest they say is history .

Chelle needs help with reading our games, but an incredible job so far from him

Who is your suggestion?

I think those foreign assistants working with him may already be the match readers

I also don't think this NFF may want to add someone to thwir payroll

TheSuperNerd:
Look at this one too. Onyedika executed a clean tackle and won the ball but the ref called it against us. Look at how Iwobi reacted. Look at the steam it took out of our lads.

See clear tackle. Look at Iwobi's reaction The ref broke so many momentum in the game. pic.twitter.com/Uf1KPfYE24

— Chinaza Kelvin (@kelvin_chinaza) January 15, 2026

This clip is also part of why I say Onyedika was not all bad yesterday. He was not as physically assertive and aggressive as he should have been given the occasion but he did do some things right.
Below is yet another stat backing it up, under intense pressure, this guy still finds the pass.... he only need to up his physical aggression meter.

Backpasses and side passes with little or no impact at all

TheSuperNerd:
Carney Chukwuemeka
Faustino Anjorin
Lesley Ugochukwu

They are all 3/3 midfielders (Technical, tactically progressive and also importantly, Physically built & aggressive).

My only issue is if we can recruit them or if they will honor our interest.

Bro, it will be hard for any of them to play for us

They don't rate us at all

realpoacher:
As a Coach, you always have one job to do.


Find a way to play your game.


In this Match, we did not play our game, infact, we couldn't play our normal free flowing football we were used to, why?

Morocco did not allow us to do that, they had 3 players on us whenever we tried to move the ball to our half, Pass to Osimehn, 3 people on him, pass to Akor, or Lookman or Iwobi, same story, 3 players on them. Towards the end of the match, Iwobi had to drop deep to the defense line to collect the ball with a little freedom


As a Coach, what should you do? You don't stand for 90 minutes watch your team struggle to play their normal game, NO! ... You look for a way to fix it - think on your feet and fix it.


Your opponent should not be running riots on you all night and you stand by doing nothing.

Algeria did that nonsense and got punished, Egypt did the same nonsense against Senegal and lost, Nigeria did the same nonsense against Congo and now Against Morocco.

I also see many coaches do this nonsense too but Pep doesn't, Arteta doesn't, Anceloti doesn't


As a Coach, learn try multiple formations, try your players in multiple positions, understand how they fare in uneven grounds so that when push comes to shove, instead of being clueless, you fix it on the field instantaneously.


From the first blast of the whistle, you could see that Morocco had studied your team to the minute details, they figured that if they close the holes from the midfield down to the final third, you midfielders and attackers will be useless I.E it simply means that once they can cut off supply to midfielders and strikers,
.. Otilo.

Now as a Coach, should you have done, seeing that for almost 60 minutes, you had no forward press not shots on Target,... Then you switch the formation to 4-3-1-2


Remove Akor for Onauchu
Remove Onyedika for Chucks

-------- Onauchu -------- Osimehn

------------------------- Iwobi -----------------


Lookman ---------- Onyeka ----------------- Chucks


Bruno ------- Bassey ---------- Ajayi ----- Osayi


With this setup, the Moroccans will certainly be deceived and run at you


Lookman and chucks are runners of the ball and will widen the field for Iwobi to operate


Onyeka has two oxygen packs glued to his heart and can handle the pressure with chunks and lookman supporting both Bruno and Osayi


The goal is to use both chuks and lookman on the wings and playing deep in our half to spread out the Morocco for Iwobi to play and for Osimehn to Pounce.


But what did Chelle do,... He stood there on the sidelines for 90 minutes watching helplessly like he did against Congo.

He might be a great pre-game tactician but very poor in-game manager..... Something Anceloti is a genius at


Frankly, as a Coach.... Ability to read games and change the tempo to your terms is very very important else you might not go far in becoming great

Lookman and chuks in midfield is a disaster waiting to happen

Replace chuks with Bashiru

We need at least 2 sensible midfielders that can hold the ball better and are physically strong enough to withstand press

But you're mostly right

Subzero0477:
Think there is a sense in which Raphael Onyedika is getting the short end of the stick for last night.

While he had a very poor match, able to neither impose himself nor get to grips with the intensity of the match, and was rightly pulled, it is important to acknowledge that, up until the semi-final, the Super Eagles had not faced a side as defensively and/or tactically astute as the Moroccans.

Would Ndidi have made a difference? Certainly. Being more tenacious in the tackle and boasting greater anticipation, he would no doubt have fared better and helped Nigeria compete more fiercely. But nothing he faced in the competition was remotely close to the standard the Moroccans brought. So it is not really comparing apples with apples. The same Ndidi was present while our midfield was overrun against DR Congo two months ago. Not his fault personally at all, but the point is that these things are not straightforward to analyse.

Different players have different skill sets. Onyedika is what he is; if, as a coach, you put him into the team in place of a different profile of player, you owe it to him and the team to tweak something else in order to allow him play. Last night, the Super Eagles needed to be even more patient than usual, knowing they were lacking something out of possession. Instead, the opposite was the case.

-Solace Chukwu

Chelle had no plan B

He had been tinkering with the team and finally found a working for.ula but alas, he had no plan B

His fault

Meanwhile