₦airaland Forum

Joebie:
haha.. vren do

how u dey?

I dey Gallant sah

How is the family

What if I told you that the Super Eagles of Nigeria’s 🇳🇬 star, Ademola Lookman, is the first and only player in the world to score a hat-trick in a Europa League final?
pic.twitter.com/2HFBwr1VSk

— Africa First (@AfricaFirsts) December 29, 2025

Lookman has a signature move. Once he drops his shoulders and does that leg over to his left foot, oya bye bye

SE H2H with Uganda is not pure , SE need to win them tomorrow

do4luv14:
Oshare sah digwo

Na Omote you dey follow talk ooo,
Biko try leave am like that sah

Okpe man of culture

minfelix:
how did they give it to Ivory coast naaa…Ivory coast simply rode on football luck to win that cup, it was not like they favoured them anywhere.
Their round 16 vs Senegal was a also a game of luck winning on penalties.
Their quarterfinal against Mali was a sweet come back they did beating Chelle’s Mali in the die mins
Their final against us, they outplayed us clean clean and won the cup…there was nothing like ojoro

The referee allowed Adingra to fry Aina without doing anything.

Ku

TheSuperNerd:
To be honest, left to me, he wont be sacked after this Afcon no matter what. He has to be left to build on his mostly good works. He is 48 and this is his 3rd year in international football coaching despite beginning his coaching career in 2014.

Now he may make certain mistakes but his greatest attributes which I love are his ability to listen, learn from the bloopers and adapt.

Eric Sekou Chelle is here to stay and the NFF better stick to him post-Afcon. He is growing as a coach internationally and he is a tough one to beat when you look at his records with Mali and now us.

Make see wetin him go do this AFCON first

9JAMac10:
Nigeria to likely play Mozambican team in the next round . Let’s see how it goes

Except Tanzania draw Tunisia or Uganda beat us, we are playing Angola

ITS MATCH DAY!!!!

Let's crush these Cranes of Uganda boys!!
Send them a message!!
Send the whole of Africa a message!!

Let them know the Super Eagles are here for the AFCON trophy and any team that gets in our path will get CRUSHED!!

DO IT TODAY BOYS!!

Lookman, Nwabali, Osimhen and Ajayi are on yellow card...
If they pick another booking today, they will miss the round of 16

Goke7:
The best team don’t win tournaments most times. CIV was not the best team in the last tournament in fact the current team is way better than the team that won the Afcon as hosts. Lots of factors play out in winning a tournament (both off and off the pitch and yes including officiating) even when the eagles won in 2013 they were not the best team. CIV with drogba and yaya toure were much better but were beaten by the eagles. The better sides don’t win always.

i agree better teams dont usually win sometimes…but you see that last afcon final
CIV were the better team…in group stage they were poor, but some how luck from other results help them crawl into the knockout stage, where they gather momentum and became a very solid side…ref did not help them anything…their then interim coach found a winning formular to brush opponents aside

Goke7:
This your current eagles may not even reach the final this time around, why don’t you wait till the end of this Afcon before you conclude.

You said MAY, so it also mean they MAY aswell get to the final..so lets wait till the end

AndSunGorilla:
The referee allowed Adingra to fry Aina without doing anything.

🤣🤣🤣Aina was grilled and fried at the same time….dem beat us like mumu that last afcon, nothing like ref ojoro abeg

No need to get all testy Doc. We're having a civil discussion so please put away the name calling.

Now to address your point. I never said Iwobi should not contribute defensively. I said ideally, he should however if he's failing in that angle he's at least been adding more to our offensive threats. Plus considering that he's an AM he will be judged more on his attacking stats than defensive numbers.

You then brought Nwakali as an example of something who contributed attacking wise in the 2021 without doing much defensively claiming it's hypocrisy. KC didn't contribute that much offensively to the team's attack then for you to be using him as a reference.

Okocha in his heyday was a defensive liability for the SE but we all consider him a legend of Nigerian football for his offensive prowess. No many people cared that he wasn't doing his marking duties as long as he was giving assists or scoring.

Iwobi should do his fair bit of defensive work but if push comes to shove, I will rather see him more effective in an attacking sense because that's where he will be most useful. Last AFCON that he was putting in a defensive shift in the end what did he get? Abuse and ridicule.

TheSuperNerd:
That is not football for you. That is Hypocrisy for you. If results mattered alone, some of us wont point out Chelle's error in the Tunisia game. We would say since he bagged the 3pts, then all was perfect.

For me, it would be best for Chelle to communicate this defensive lapse observation to Iwobi in order to make us much more unplayable and near impenetrable through the middle. Keep executing your primary duty of creating and offensively orchestrating the plays but kindly join in defending too when we are out of possession and transitioning to defence. Chikena.

Nigeria to face 3rd place team from Either group B(Angola) or F(Mozambique)
now it’s likely both to qualify to r16…Mozambique on 3pts, Angola on 2pts.
If Tunisia beats Tanzania(which is likely on paper) and Nigeria beat Uganda(which is also likely on paper), both Angola(group B) and Mozambique (group F) will qualify to R16

The question is who are we gonna face, cos they are both 95% qualified to R16

We have advocated long and hard that instead of playing Iwobi from deep in the midfield, he should be plugged in to play close to the attackers so he can give defense splitting passes. And in the last match, that was precisely what was done and we saw how good he was.

Maybe just as Peseiro deployed the 3-5-2 formation after our first two matches at the last Afcon and it took us all the way, Chelle should also stay with this formation and it allows our attacking strength to find expression with compromising our defensive solidity in the midfield where Frank the Tank reigns supreme.

This 4-2-1-1-2 or 4-3-1-2 formation is good for us considering that we are soft at the back.

minfelix:
Nigeria to face 3rd place team from Either group B(Angola) or F(Mozambique)
now it’s likely both to qualify to r16…Mozambique on 3pts, Angola on 2pts.
If Tunisia beats Tanzania(which is likely on paper) and Nigeria beat Uganda(which is also likely on paper), both Angola(group B) and Mozambique (group F) will qualify to R16

The question is who are we gonna face, cos they are both 95% qualified to R16

We will face Angola...

Mujtahida:

What if I told you that the Super Eagles of Nigeria’s 🇳🇬 star, Ademola Lookman, is the first and only player in the world to score a hat-trick in a Europa League final?
pic.twitter.com/2HFBwr1VSk

— Africa First (@AfricaFirsts) December 29, 2025

Lookman has a signature move. Once he drops his shoulders and does that leg over to his left foot, oya bye bye

any opposition defender wey Mola do that move against must commot for road

Danielnino00:
Lookman, Nwabali, Osimhen and Ajayi are on yellow card...
If they pick another booking today, they will miss the round of 16

We can only hope that none of these players will start today’s game (that we are not chasing or looking for anything) but then we may be in for another surprise and later say lessons will be learnt for the next game 😂

In a time where Nigeria is in dire need of a perfect replacement for Nwabali, FIFA has just approved the Nationality Switch for Nigerian descent goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo who was born in London to a
Nigerian parents.

He will now be eligible to play for the Nigeria Super Eagles.

Okonkwo has made 66 saves, kept 5 clean sheets in 21 matches for Wrexham in the English Championship this season.

Danielnino00:
Lookman, Nwabali, Osimhen and Ajayi are on yellow card...
If they pick another booking today, they will miss the round of 16

I thought cards picked up in group stage are cancelled for the knockout round.

Modified;
I just educated myself.

Article 42.2: The cautions received during the matches qualifying phase shall not be taken into account for the matches of the final tournament. At the end of the first phase of the final tournament (group matches), all cautions received shall be cancelled for the rest of the competition. Nevertheless, a player having collected two yellow cards will sustain the one match suspension.’’

Yes, they most likely will be cleared before round two games commence.

Odunayaw:
I thought cards picked up in group stage are cancelled for the knockout round

chrisooblog:
Yes, they most likely will be cleared before round two games commence.

It’s only if one yellow card was collected in the first stage and the second one in a knockout stage that the one in the first stage will be cancelled. If both cards were collected in the first stage the next game no matter what that player will be suspended

I have a question
Is Lookman a complete player ?
The only hole I see in his game is that he could sometimes be selfish
He tracks back really well (he does this much better than Ejuke ) & helps the defense
He’s also lethal going forward
I just think if he can be selfless as Osimhen & Adams for the team sake, he’d be super complete
This was my take before the AFCON
Boy is lethal in this AFCON though

I don’t think Osimhen is really concerned about highest goal scorer if you look at his selfless assist, their main target is the trophy
Adams & Iwobi are playing super vital roles for the team too

i learnt Nwabali is injured , how reliable is Uzoho ... can someone confirm this news

typicalgamer:
Okpe man of culture

How far sah, greetings

AndSunGorilla:
The referee allowed Adingra to fry Aina without doing anything.

Aina wey dey struggle with injury and fatigue that time, Else who be Adingra wey em wan fry Aina

Mujtahida:
We have advocated long and hard that instead of playing Iwobi from deep in the midfield, he should be plugged in to play close to the attackers so he can give defense splitting passes. And in the last match, that was precisely what was done and we saw how good he was.

Maybe just as Peseiro deployed the 3-5-2 formation after our first two matches at the last Afcon and it took us all the way, Chelle should also stay with this formation and it allows our attacking strength to find expression with compromising our defensive solidity in the midfield where Frank the Tank reigns supreme.

This 4-2-1-1-2 or 4-3-1-2 formation is good for us considering that we are soft at the back.

Rather that system Strength our defensive solidity in midfield,awhile also boasting and supporting the attack ,

That was the major reason for our superb defensive showing in the last Afcon

Sarsaparilla524:
In a time where Nigeria is in dire need of a perfect replacement for Nwabali, FIFA has just approved the Nationality Switch for Nigerian descent goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo who was born in London to a
Nigerian parents.

He will now be eligible to play for the Nigeria Super Eagles.

What is your sauce

lexyman:
i learnt Nwabali is injured , how reliable is Uzoho ... can someone confirm this news

It will be very painful if he is truly injured and still makes the final squad to AFCON. The coach at Chippa United raised the alarm about his fitness before the final list was released. I believe if he had been left out of the team, Okoye would have made the squad. Now we are left with Nzoho, a familiar and worrying option.

For those screaming that Nwabali should be replaced , I have good news for you , he is nursing an injury and Uzoho will likely be in goal. If the injury is severe Uzoho will be in goal in round 16. I hope you will not complain about Uzoho because these are first and second choice goalkeepers. Some people even blamed Nwabali for not saving the penalty against Tunisia ,Haba .Not doubt Nwabali is playing with injury and he is not in form but can Uzoho carry us through? Is a big question begging for answer.

charlesemeka85:
any opposition defender wey Mola do that move against must commot for road

Ronaldo De Lima too get signature move like that. His own was more elaborate.

lexyman:
i learnt Nwabali is injured , how reliable is Uzoho ... can someone confirm this news

Uzoho is utterly unreliable. God, why?

Okoye really has bad luck with the National team