African Football Discussion Thread Current Topic: 👉 AFCON 2025/2026

[Ndabagi01]

I don't believe Voodoo works. If it did Congo would've used it to qualify since not until they play this play-off, Look how they struggled with penalty kicks before making it to the World Cup. I've noticed one thing about the Super Eagles we often have a bad manager, and players lack of seriousness used to contributes to their failure. We have talented players performing well in their clubs which If they played with seriousness, I don't see any African team challenging them. But they always fail to take it seriously, leading to disappointing performances, like what happened in the last AFCON.

If voodoo works in football, then African teams would have by now been the ones with the most World Cup, so this is all lies to just cover up his failure for the Nigerian team not being able to make it to the World Cup. We should just see the reality in that match, it was obvious that Congo took the control of the match in the second half with the Nigerian teams not being able to do anything again. When you’re not in possession of the match, it becomes very difficult to even think of winning the match. I saw a big rumour that FIFA will investigate the use of Voodoo by the Congolese national team as alleged by the Nigerian coach, and if found guilty, they’ll be disqualified for the World Cup and Nigeria will qualify. It was really a thing of shame and disgrace seeing that alleged news circulating.

[Umulala-alala]

I don't believe Voodoo works. If it did Congo would've used it to qualify since not until they play this play-off, Look how they struggled with penalty kicks before making it to the World Cup. I've noticed one thing about the Super Eagles we often have a bad manager, and players lack of seriousness used to contributes to their failure. We have talented players performing well in their clubs which If they played with seriousness, I don't see any African team challenging them. But they always fail to take it seriously, leading to disappointing performances, like what happened in the last AFCON.

If voodoo works in football, then African teams would have by now been the ones with the most World Cup, so this is all lies to just cover up his failure for the Nigerian team not being able to make it to the World Cup. We should just see the reality in that match, it was obvious that Congo took the control of the match in the second half with the Nigerian teams not being able to do anything again. When you’re not in possession of the match, it becomes very difficult to even think of winning the match. I saw a big rumour that FIFA will investigate the use of Voodoo by the Congolese national team as alleged by the Nigerian coach, and if found guilty, they’ll be disqualified for the World Cup and Nigeria will qualify. It was really a thing of shame and disgrace seeing that alleged news circulating.

If i were to be the congolese we will sue the Nigeria coach for making such statement that the congolese uses vodoo to win the super eagles in the penalty shot out, if this vodoo of a thing do work in football why has African nation not win the world till now, well i will say that our coach just wanted were he can channel his blame to, the super eagles of Nigeria never perform well against Dr congo. Congo deserve the winning and there is nothing vodoo in it.

[Adbitco]

Very funny, given the group that Nigeria was in the qualifiers and the kind of players they have I their ranks, I mean most of the players are playing in Europe's top flight respective leagues and we still struggle to qualify from that kind of a group. It's totally embarrassing on a serious note. Nigeria in the first place wasn't even supposed to be in the category of playing in the play offs, that's were they got it wrong in the first place.

Nigeria should just go home and rest biko, if they were serious from the very beginning of the world cup qualifying games, they wouldn't have played this play off games, but instead they would have qualified as the Senegalese team and the rest of other top African side did, not relying on qualifying from the back door.

So if the Dr congo team was using voodoo to play their football, why didn't they prayed or do anything spiritual to counter what the opposite team was doing?
Though it might be true, but I don't think that it plays any part in deciding the outcome of the game because our super eagles team was completely out played the moment victor osimhen was subbed off, they were just lucky not to have lose the game in the 120 minutes of football.

My point exactly, if they were serious from the onset Nigeria wouldn't even be in the category of playing an extra 2 games in the name of qualifiers. The team was so unserious right from the qualifiers, games they would have won, they ended up playing draw. The second strongest team in that group was South Africa, what did they do, played the first leg and second leg draw. Failed to beat Lesotho and Benin Republic twice. These were games that would have projected to the top with lots of point difference and they would have been first in the group but they chose to play around and started getting serious almost when it's over.

[IjawMan]

The Nigeria manager doesn't want to take responsibility for his team loss, so he claimed on media that someone from Congo used Vodoo during the penalty kick. In my opinion this isn't a valid reason. He said this because he knows that in Africa many people believe in spiritual things, so he's trying to shift the blame.

I had this projection that one of my Nigerian brothers will want to direct blames for the fate that engulfed the super eagles in the Congo - Nigeria match to the coach, and you have just approved it by making these claims on Eric Chelle who without his efforts Nigeria would not have made it to this stage.

Direct your blames to the people that created the genesis of the problem that led the super eagles to this shameful end. The NFF, Jose Peseiro, Finidi George if the first two coaches had won their matches from the beginning of the group qualifiers we won't be having Eric Chelle who won 14 points for Nigeria in addition to the 3 points Peseiro and Finidi could make of in 4 matches.

With Eric Chelle Nigeria won't have made it to the playoffs but Eric made sure Nigeria was able to but the super eagles players could not support the coach effort by winning Congo in a match that was not meant to go to penalty kicks.

[Pjcr7]

A voodoo excuse is very cheap, when you lose you should accept defeat and move on instead of giving unverifiable excuses, a good team can lose to an underdog in a match it doesn't mean that the team cannot beat the opponent in another match. If our coach had argued about match fixing the world could look critically into his claims but it's rather unfortunate that he didn't present a convincing reason why his team lost the match. I wish the super eagles the best in their future endeavors, hopefully they will get their acts together when they have another opportunity to proof themselves.

I don’t think it was an excuse but an actual fact about something that is happening, you might not believe that this things are real, but I know this things exist, he was bold enough to talk about what he must have seen, but football in Africa there are so many things that are involved, but this things doesn’t have much effect on football games, but if it’s actually true and things like this really do exist, that should make the Congolese team qualify for the World Cup and eventually go on and win the World Cup with the voodoo that they have that can possibly make them to win game.

Fact is something that's verifiable and can be proven beyond every doubts, beyond that it's just mere speculations. Let's face it, the Congolese actually played well and Nigeria was even lucky the game ended in a draw and extended to extra time. Nwabali, the  Nigerian goalkeeper kept his team in the game at normal time if not for him, Nigeria may have even been 3:1 down before full time. Did you also see the kind of subs the coach made after half time, it was as if Nigeria was already winning 6:0 and the coach wanted to reserve his players for another match, that's what that kind of substitution seemed like to me. Maybe he forgot that he was still drawing and his opponent is coming down at him. For the voodoo part, if it is as he claimed, why did DR Congo struggle to qualify, why didn't they use it to win all their matches? Why haven't they even used it to win the World Cup all these ages ago.

[Stepstowealth]

These were games that would have projected to the top with lots of point difference and they would have been first in the group but they chose to play around and started getting serious almost when it's over.

A huge question now to be answered is if we will learn from this? If we will be better in the next four years to actually be in the world cup? or if it will be another disappointing phase.

If you want to hear my answer, I think we will not, I am even afraid that we may be worse then if the corruption in the NFF is not addressed. We should be addressing the root cause of our failure which is the NFF and their incompetence now if we want to make the next qualification. Many players who can make a difference for us will no longer be interested in National duty because of how bad the system is.

[Agbe]

Eric Chelle should just say that the Gabon squad was strong instead of all this big talk, it doesn't fit his career, they win you and you think the winning was not ordinary, was it not the same wining Cameroon get from them and they accepted it without thinking there was something behind it, he is saying what he did not see and besides soccer today is not like those days when people think that they can win using magic charm on there fellow players, perhaps he is afraid of what Nigerians would say to him that's why using Voodoo is the only option he could use to get away from being blamed by anybody.

Congo you mean. But the fact is that giving this type of excuse as not been able to qualify for the world cup just show were we have found ourselves as a country in our football. The super eagles looked hopeless without any cohesion during this game against Congo let face as as football fans DRC were the better side in this game, I was even surprised that they could not even kill this game in the full time and allowed it to go into penalties before winning it. This coach to me should be sack for coming up with this type of excuse for failing to perform.

[Stablexcoin]

If voodoo works in football, then African teams would have by now been the ones with the most World Cup, so this is all lies to just cover up his failure for the Nigerian team not being able to make it to the World Cup. We should just see the reality in that match, it was obvious that Congo took the control of the match in the second half with the Nigerian teams not being able to do anything again. When you’re not in possession of the match, it becomes very difficult to even think of winning the match. I saw a big rumour that FIFA will investigate the use of Voodoo by the Congolese national team as alleged by the Nigerian coach, and if found guilty, they’ll be disqualified for the World Cup and Nigeria will qualify. It was really a thing of shame and disgrace seeing that alleged news circulating.

The Super Eagle coach wants to believe what he feels is the problem. You can't stop someone who believes in voodoo from expecting it to exist even in football. But to my greatest understanding, Voodoo exists, but not in football. When they were taking their penalty, he should have made up his mind that such superstitious power does not work on the players. It is a thing of the inner mind and soul. When you accept it, it will work on you, but when you don't choose to accept it, it won't work.

Eric Chille should accept the fact that the Super Eagles were very poor during the penalties and that nothing like voodoo was the reason why DR Congo won in that game.

[Silikiem]

Eric Chelle should just say that the Gabon squad was strong instead of all this big talk, it doesn't fit his career, they win you and you think the winning was not ordinary, was it not the same wining Cameroon get from them and they accepted it without thinking there was something behind it, he is saying what he did not see and besides soccer today is not like those days when people think that they can win using magic charm on there fellow players, perhaps he is afraid of what Nigerians would say to him that's why using Voodoo is the only option he could use to get away from being blamed by anybody.

Congo you mean. But the fact is that giving this type of excuse as not been able to qualify for the world cup just show were we have found ourselves as a country in our football. The super eagles looked hopeless without any cohesion during this game against Congo let face as as football fans DRC were the better side in this game, I was even surprised that they could not even kill this game in the full time and allowed it to go into penalties before winning it. This coach to me should be sack for coming up with this type of excuse for failing to perform.

It was a really shambolic performance by the super Eagles of Nigeria especially in the second half, the Congolese dominated them and should have won the game at normal time. Even if the Congolese used African magic or Vodoo to win the penalty kick as claimed by the Nigerian coach, they still deserved to win that game, they worked for it. All of these drama are just medicine after death. Nigerian team if they are really serious about making it the World Cup 2026, they would have won all their matches from the group stage, they have all it takes to do that especially with the caliber of players they have in their squad. They should accept defeat and move on just like the other teams who missed out during the qualifications did, using Gabon whom Nigeria beat in their first playoff game did.

[Lida93]

I don't believe Voodoo works. If it did Congo would've used it to qualify since not until they play this play-off, Look how they struggled with penalty kicks before making it to the World Cup. I've noticed one thing about the Super Eagles we often have a bad manager, and players lack of seriousness used to contributes to their failure. We have talented players performing well in their clubs which If they played with seriousness, I don't see any African team challenging them. But they always fail to take it seriously, leading to disappointing performances, like what happened in the last AFCON.

This conversation is quite annoying and a sign of weakness and mediocrity on the side of Eric Chelle, to he coach of the Super Eagles. So many people are of the impression that if Nigeria had finally qualified for the World Cup then it would have been considered as football injustice because the team didn't compete very well in the qualifiers, so I don't expect the coach to be giving such flimsy excuses about Voodoo when his team couldn't play during regulation time, the Eagles were even lucky not to have conceded at least 3 goals in the second half.

[Agbam]

I don't know why some people are not happy with super eagle for the loss they experience from penalty shootout, they play the match from first half till second half and extra time was given still super eagle players refused to allow DR C to end the match with another goal, now that super eagle lose in the penalty shootout, nobody want to flash back to know where the super eagle are coming from to get to where they are to challenge Dr C before DR C manage to used penalty shootout to defeat super eagle, infant super eagle coach deserve award from the Nigerian government because he prove to Nigerian that he trained super eagle players well because we saw the excellent display super eagle displayed.

My friend I don’t understand you at all… where is Nigeria or rather Super Eagles coming from?… They allowed teams like Benin win them draw with teams like Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Rwanda and then narrowly given an opportunity for play offs only to let DR Congo outplay them with the calibre of players that we have, what have they done for us to understand, a group they could have easily topped to fighting for chance and loosing woefully. Nobody will be happy and Nobody is. Our Coach instead of accepting responsibility is claiming Voodoo was responsible, in a way the match exposed him, he’s tactically poor and you say he deserves an award. No man!.
They should go back to the drawing board and get their acts right.

[Amphenomenon]

I had this projection that one of my Nigerian brothers will want to direct blames for the fate that engulfed the super eagles in the Congo - Nigeria match to the coach, and you have just approved it by making these claims on Eric Chelle who without his efforts Nigeria would not have made it to this stage.

Direct your blames to the people that created the genesis of the problem that led the super eagles to this shameful end. The NFF, Jose Peseiro, Finidi George if the first two coaches had won their matches from the beginning of the group qualifiers we won't be having Eric Chelle who won 14 points for Nigeria in addition to the 3 points Peseiro and Finidi could make of in 4 matches.

With Eric Chelle Nigeria won't have made it to the playoffs but Eric made sure Nigeria was able to but the super eagles players could not support the coach effort by winning Congo in a match that was not meant to go to penalty kicks.

Eric Chelle isn't really special, he is lucky to have Osimhen in form, Finidi George wasn't fortunate in that regard and was having issues with him. To be honest, I don't really consider both good, their tactics is still questionable and I think it's high time the scouts scouted more players especially in the midfield.  Give more players chance and we can't continue to scream about certain players or positions year by year and no alternatives are being searched for or found.

[igebotz]

The Super Eagle coach wants to believe what he feels is the problem. You can't stop someone who believes in voodoo from expecting it to exist even in football. But to my greatest understanding, Voodoo exists, but not in football. When they were taking their penalty, he should have made up his mind that such superstitious power does not work on the players. It is a thing of the inner mind and soul. When you accept it, it will work on you, but when you don't choose to accept it, it won't work.

Eric Chille should accept the fact that the Super Eagles were very poor during the penalties and that nothing like voodoo was the reason why DR Congo won in that game.

If he had won the game in normal time as he should have, we wouldn't be in that predicament in the first place - who told him that Bassey and Ayayi are good PK takers? No good manager pulls all of their best players before 60 minutes in a crucial game like this; he messed up and needs to accept responsibility and move on.  We're lucky to even get a penalty shootout after such a terrible performance.  The best team won, and we did not deserve it.

This is the worst set of Eagles support I've seen in a long time, and it's a shame we lost out on another World Cup- we need to win the AFCON trophy now or fold the team, no excuses.

[uche6215]

The Super Eagle coach wants to believe what he feels is the problem. You can't stop someone who believes in voodoo from expecting it to exist even in football. But to my greatest understanding, Voodoo exists, but not in football. When they were taking their penalty, he should have made up his mind that such superstitious power does not work on the players. It is a thing of the inner mind and soul. When you accept it, it will work on you, but when you don't choose to accept it, it won't work.

Eric Chille should accept the fact that the Super Eagles were very poor during the penalties and that nothing like voodoo was the reason why DR Congo won in that game.

If he had won the game in normal time as he should have, we wouldn't be in that predicament in the first place - who told him that Bassey and Ayayi are good PK takers? No good manager pulls all of their best players before 60 minutes in a crucial game like this; he messed up and needs to accept responsibility and move on.  We're lucky to even get a penalty shootout after such a terrible performance.  The best team won, and we did not deserve it.

This is the worst set of Eagles support I've seen in a long time, and it's a shame we lost out on another World Cup- we need to win the AFCON trophy now or fold the team, no excuses.

The guy fucked up. All those Superstition believe Eric Chelle is saying is nonsense and he is using it as a ln excuse. What he did was fucked up. Finidi did the same of removing the best players and thinking that they would do well but at the end they loss all the matches. He would have taken that scenario as an example. The squad he used in the Gabon game would been used in the Dr. Congo game. He would include Bassey and Ayayi in the main game if they would have won in the Gabon game. He is not a good Coach because good coach would not do such a thing.

[Roseline492]

From this act of his, the management should replace him as soon as possible because with this accusation he has keep the national team on a mockery because they would began to see them as people who looks for unnecessary reason to create a time wasting impression. If it was done while they were playing penalty how come they also miss some of there penalty and secondly if voodoo was there, on the first half they would have giving super eagles more than 10 goals, everybody saw that it was an innocent match that played without hidden anything that is above the physical, it was a sad lost.

Such resulting actions which create din like this inevitably translate to a powerful desire to get a conclusive resolution, because we will desire to defend the honour of a diligent team. With vague excuses surfacing it is simple to give the appearance that the field performance is an offloading to other activities. The lack of decreed penalties is not a storey that is difficult to prove, but rather a consequence of an unsuccessful execution. This experience can prove that we must base our judgement on what really occurred on the field so that we might have a clear judgement.

Nobody is excited of what is going on within super eagles on how they could not see this wining but I see nothing to say against the Gabon that our couch seem to have become a seer on this match, however to proof him wrong I think the organizers should do as they have conducting all the times regards to issues of this similar nature to see to the details of how the match went if there was something that was holding and making the super eagles players to feel very weak. People would have pay some attention to the couch if Gabon has a background of that kind life in there country but on the contrary they're like all there fellow countries.

[Coyster]

we need to win the AFCON trophy now

It is as simple as that and i have written the same thing a couple of times since we failed to make it to the World Cup. The only way to somewhat remedy the situation is if we win the AFCON, nothing else. I expected to see resignations from NFF officials after our poor showing and eventual elimination, but the NFF instead issued a long note of apology in the official X profile, lol. I wonder what they think Nigerians would do with an apology after missing out on back-to-back World Cups. Pathetic.

[Baki202]

I don't know why some people are not happy with super eagle for the loss they experience from penalty shootout, they play the match from first half till second half and extra time was given still super eagle players refused to allow DR C to end the match with another goal, now that super eagle lose in the penalty shootout, nobody want to flash back to know where the super eagle are coming from to get to where they are to challenge Dr C before DR C manage to used penalty shootout to defeat super eagle, infant super eagle coach deserve award from the Nigerian government because he prove to Nigerian that he trained super eagle players well because we saw the excellent display super eagle displayed.

This is one of the most disappointing moments for Nigeria, and your question of why people are not happy is, who is going to be happy with what happened? A lot of Nigerians were expecting the Super Eagles, and they would have avoided a penalty shootout by all means, because when it comes to cases like that, you cannot even predict exactly who is going to win. And they knew what they were doing, and that is why they dragged the Super Eagles to a penalty shootout.  And everyone was expecting it, since they are no longer in the competition. There is nothing to worry about anymore.  because they don't have to give anyone any pressure at this point. so now that they are no longer in the competition, we are all going to rest.  I cannot even remember the last time that Nigeria qualified.

[Spaceman1000$]

The Nigeria manager doesn't want to take responsibility for his team loss, so he claimed on media that someone from Congo used Vodoo during the penalty kick. In my opinion this isn't a valid reason. He said this because he knows that in Africa many people believe in spiritual things, so he's trying to shift the blame.

I had this projection that one of my Nigerian brothers will want to direct blames for the fate that engulfed the super eagles in the Congo - Nigeria match to the coach, and you have just approved it by making these claims on Eric Chelle who without his efforts Nigeria would not have made it to this stage.

Direct your blames to the people that created the genesis of the problem that led the super eagles to this shameful end. The NFF, Jose Peseiro, Finidi George if the first two coaches had won their matches from the beginning of the group qualifiers we won't be having Eric Chelle who won 14 points for Nigeria in addition to the 3 points Peseiro and Finidi could make of in 4 matches.

With Eric Chelle Nigeria won't have made it to the playoffs but Eric made sure Nigeria was able to but the super eagles players could not support the coach effort by winning Congo in a match that was not meant to go to penalty kicks.

Eric Chelle didn't do bad, he tried for the time being that he managed the super Eagles, I think he should forget about that Voodoo allegation. The route he was using to qualify for the World cup was already a difficult one, and a lot of challenge will be encountered. the mistake just like you said are those early games the super Eagles had and they did not win. Wether voodoo or not, penalty kicks are always 50/50, it can go in your favor or in the favor of your opponent, so Chelle shouldn't be over dramatic i think.

[Jaycoinz]

we need to win the AFCON trophy now

It is as simple as that and i have written the same thing a couple of times since we failed to make it to the World Cup. The only way to somewhat remedy the situation is if we win the AFCON, nothing else. I expected to see resignations from NFF officials after our poor showing and eventual elimination, but the NFF instead issued a long note of apology in the official X profile, lol. I wonder what they think Nigerians would do with an apology after missing out on back-to-back World Cups. Pathetic.

Nigerians have most certainly been disappointed and the worst of it all is that we couldn't make it to the world cup twice in a row which is something that shows how badly the Nigerian football has become. Sometimes I wonder with all the players and all the reputable clubs that these players play for still they find it hard to make everything work and actually produce a good result that Nigerian will hold onto, as for the nations league, I don't feel anyone would be optimistic to even think we can secure it with the poor football they are playing.

[Moreno233]

If voodoo works in football, then African teams would have by now been the ones with the most World Cup, so this is all lies to just cover up his failure for the Nigerian team not being able to make it to the World Cup. We should just see the reality in that match, it was obvious that Congo took the control of the match in the second half with the Nigerian teams not being able to do anything again. When you’re not in possession of the match, it becomes very difficult to even think of winning the match. I saw a big rumour that FIFA will investigate the use of Voodoo by the Congolese national team as alleged by the Nigerian coach, and if found guilty, they’ll be disqualified for the World Cup and Nigeria will qualify. It was really a thing of shame and disgrace seeing that alleged news circulating.

The Super Eagles coach was just expressing his frustration and looking at something to point as excuse for that bad performance that day. I laughed so hard when I watch the clip of him describing what he believe was the voodoo and his expression was not different from that of a frustrated coach. It was indeed disheartening for him and the entire team for Nigeria not to qualify for world cup and most of the players now would have been retired before the next world cup.