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

[CryptSafe]

African teams have the skills and what it takes to win the World Cup, but the truth is that African teams lack the technical know-how to attain that height of achieving such a feat.

Lacking in technical know-how? How do you think this can be solved? Do you think the foreign coaches or foreign technical staff can help? Because if that is what you think, I want you to recall that many African teams have contracted the services of a foreign coach and staff to help, but it still has not helped.

Maybe there needs to be better investment in grass-roots football and into football in general in these African countries so that it is actually enticing for people to want to represent their country and put in their best, and also not want to play for other countries. If many African players are actually representing their countries and putting in their best, it will be possible for Africa to lift the World Cup.

 I am curious about this whole thing sincerely because I have been thinking about it for some time now, and this made me dive into the club side, and if you notice, African players are doing perfectly well at their club side compared to their national team. The majority of the African players have lifted club-side trophies and others as well, but when it comes to home or national level, they just try to play what they can, and yet the efforts do not equate to what they play at clubside.

They put in a better performance for their club sides because they know that there is competition for their spot on the team, and these club sides offer better incentives to them, do not owe them, and have a likelihood of improving their contracts based on performance. It is the opposite when they play for their country.

Your points are very much valid though, but I was thinking since it is their national team, they could give their all to make sure they get to somewhere, but the effort is not as compared to the clubside they play for and of a truth, the clubside really take good care of their players so they have their position to contend for which keeps them up and doing.  

[SatoPrincess]

After Eberechi Eze scored an hattrick against Spurs on Sunday I have been seeing photos of young Eze with the Super Eagles players circulating on the internet. How did Amaju Pinnick not see the talent in Eze and convince him to play for the national team. He was busy flying around the world scouting for big name players all around Europe. It just shows how much the NFF lack vision.

I don't understand, i thought it is the players who has dual citizenship are the ones that decides which country they will play for. It never occurred to me that they are invited by the country's football body and if that's the case then i blame the NFF for not inviting an important star like Eberechi Eze to the national team because imagine if he was in the Super Eagles squad with Victor Osimhen, it would have been a mad combo. It's not late if that's the case because we still have the nations cup to play so they can still invite him to the Super Eagles.

Why would you think that? lol. Most of the players in the current Super Eagles squad were not born in Nigeria. Having dual citizenship just gives you options, but you’d have to called by either national team in the first place to have a choice. I doubt the NFF made a move for Eze, he wasn’t an important star then so they probably looked past him.

[Roseline492]

I don't understand, i thought it is the players who has dual citizenship are the ones that decides which country they will play for. It never occurred to me that they are invited by the country's football body and if that's the case then i blame the NFF for not inviting an important star like Eberechi Eze to the national team because imagine if he was in the Super Eagles squad with Victor Osimhen, it would have been a mad combo. It's not late if that's the case because we still have the nations cup to play so they can still invite him to the Super Eagles.

From the picture he seems like someone who was ready to be among the national team but we don't no how it all happened that he could not be among them when he has grown to be bigger player, perhaps they might have neglected him as he was still very small then so when he began to attract the eyes he decided not to also regard his country side and leave them to play there ball, is possible because some that isn't accepted from beginning of there career doesn't forget the past. If the guy was playing among super eagles we wouldn't have been thinking about Osimhen all the time because he would have been doing as he is performing in the Arsenal team.

[Nightwatchmare]

The super eagles coach just allowed his emotions to control him, and i think that is what made him accuse a D.R. Congo player forcefully of using VOODOO during the penalty shootout in the play off finals. I am very sure D.R. Congo did not use VOODOO against the super eagles because VOODOO doesn't work in football, and if it were true that a D.R. Congo player used VOODOO against the super eagles, a lot of people could have seen the D.R. Congo player when he was performing ritual so that the VOODOO would make the super eagles players miss their penalties or when the D.R. Congo player was keeping the VOODOO on the pitch.

If Voodoo works In football most African countries would've won the World Cup but unfortunately it doesn't work - if the DR are so good at Voodoo why haven't they won the AFCON with it ? It was a stupid excuse.

It's football and when it comes to penalty anyone can come up with some stupid rituals  or anything to distract the opponent players, it happens everywhere. Our players missed cause they were not good enough.

CAF knows that what the super eagles said about a D.R. Congo player using VOODOO is a lie, and that is why they are not bothering themselves with that. If the super eagles coach knows that VOODOO works in football, he should have travelled to Morocco with his own VOODOO so that the super eagles could have qualified for the intercontinental play off but he didn't do that because he knows VOODOO doesn't work in football. Penalty is a game of luck. So i think D.R. Congo won the super eagles in a penalty shootout because luck was on their side.

[DYOR+BTC]

After Eberechi Eze scored an hattrick against Spurs on Sunday I have been seeing photos of young Eze with the Super Eagles players circulating on the internet. How did Amaju Pinnick not see the talent in Eze and convince him to play for the national team. He was busy flying around the world scouting for big name players all around Europe. It just shows how much the NFF lack vision.

You should have known Nigeria earlier before now as a country that do not do things the way its supposed to be. The Nigeria football federation never give chances for selection based on qualification rather the introduce corruption in all activities except for the once they can't man over to there favour. Come to think of it I hope you know if sentimental selection is eliminated in Nigeria, the super eagles of Nigeria will become one of the best team in the world. But they can never allow that to happen because they won't make profit from it because they see the position as a business center where they must make profit

[Marykeller]

The super eagles coach just allowed his emotions to control him, and i think that is what made him accuse a D.R. Congo player forcefully of using VOODOO during the penalty shootout in the play off finals. I am very sure D.R. Congo did not use VOODOO against the super eagles because VOODOO doesn't work in football, and if it were true that a D.R. Congo player used VOODOO against the super eagles, a lot of people could have seen the D.R. Congo player when he was performing ritual so that the VOODOO would make the super eagles players miss their penalties or when the D.R. Congo player was keeping the VOODOO on the pitch.

If Voodoo works In football most African countries would've won the World Cup but unfortunately it doesn't work - if the DR are so good at Voodoo why haven't they won the AFCON with it ? It was a stupid excuse.

It's football and when it comes to penalty anyone can come up with some stupid rituals  or anything to distract the opponent players, it happens everywhere. Our players missed cause they were not good enough.

CAF knows that what the super eagles said about a D.R. Congo player using VOODOO is a lie, and that is why they are not bothering themselves with that. If the super eagles coach knows that VOODOO works in football, he should have travelled to Morocco with his own VOODOO so that the super eagles could have qualified for the intercontinental play off but he didn't do that because he knows VOODOO doesn't work in football. Penalty is a game of luck. So i think D.R. Congo won the super eagles in a penalty shootout because luck was on their side.

If what the Super Eagles coach said about D.R. Congo using voodoo is true, not a lie, what's the evidence? In the court of law, nothing like voodoo or spirituality is believed in. It is facts and figures that judges look into, and get judged with, not with what doesn't exist to be taken as true.

The world has let aside such a brief to be a mediocre one for those who have failed in their career, try to hold on to some misconception, believing it to be the cause of their failure. That's what the Super Eagles coach wants to portray for everyone to believe in for the Super Eagles failure to defeat D.R. Congo for World Cup qualification of 2026

[DiMarxist]

I don't understand, i thought it is the players who has dual citizenship are the ones that decides which country they will play for. It never occurred to me that they are invited by the country's football body and if that's the case then i blame the NFF for not inviting an important star like Eberechi Eze to the national team because imagine if he was in the Super Eagles squad with Victor Osimhen, it would have been a mad combo. It's not late if that's the case because we still have the nations cup to play so they can still invite him to the Super Eagles.

From the picture he seems like someone who was ready to be among the national team but we don't no how it all happened that he could not be among them when he has grown to be bigger player, perhaps they might have neglected him as he was still very small then so when he began to attract the eyes he decided not to also regard his country side and leave them to play there ball, is possible because some that isn't accepted from beginning of there career doesn't forget the past. If the guy was playing among super eagles we wouldn't have been thinking about Osimhen all the time because he would have been doing as he is performing in the Arsenal team.

One thing we have to know is that Nigeria Football Association, Football Team and other. Sport athletes are purely political and which have been discussed here before. As you can see the top politicians have their people in this Super Eagles so if the so called player (s) is not part of their Negotiation or mentioned then forget. They would replace him with someone else who's been recommended by someone in the top. In the normal way of handling such issues, NFF allows players of dual citizenship to choose the country they would like to play with but base on politics they might not call those players to come decide.
As for me, Victor Osimhen is over stress in that team and if there another player like him, things would have been better for him too.

[Gentle_Soul]

I don't understand, i thought it is the players who has dual citizenship are the ones that decides which country they will play for. It never occurred to me that they are invited by the country's football body and if that's the case then i blame the NFF for not inviting an important star like Eberechi Eze to the national team because imagine if he was in the Super Eagles squad with Victor Osimhen, it would have been a mad combo. It's not late if that's the case because we still have the nations cup to play so they can still invite him to the Super Eagles.

From the picture he seems like someone who was ready to be among the national team but we don't no how it all happened that he could not be among them when he has grown to be bigger player, perhaps they might have neglected him as he was still very small then so when he began to attract the eyes he decided not to also regard his country side and leave them to play there ball, is possible because some that isn't accepted from beginning of there career doesn't forget the past. If the guy was playing among super eagles we wouldn't have been thinking about Osimhen all the time because he would have been doing as he is performing in the Arsenal team.

One thing we have to know is that Nigeria Football Association, Football Team and other. Sport athletes are purely political and which have been discussed here before. As you can see the top politicians have their people in this Super Eagles so if the so called player (s) is not part of their Negotiation or mentioned then forget. They would replace him with someone else who's been recommended by someone in the top. In the normal way of handling such issues, NFF allows players of dual citizenship to choose the country they would like to play with but base on politics they might not call those players to come decide.
As for me, Victor Osimhen is over stress in that team and if there another player like him, things would have been better for him too.

Politicizing everything has been a problem in this country Nigeria and it is really eating up the system . I don't know if change can really occur in certain things in this country because every damn thing is political. Sometimes I wonder why some delicate things will still be politicized even the risk is too high out politicians will still not mind .
From the selection of players to the managerial team to every form of leadership is always decided politically every bit of thing is political
Nigeria does not celebrate your talent as long as you do not know somebody that knows somebody and that's why talents keep dieing every blessed day

[Callido]

If what the Super Eagles coach said about D.R. Congo using voodoo is true, not a lie, what's the evidence? In the court of law, nothing like voodoo or spirituality is believed in. It is facts and figures that judges look into, and get judged with, not with what doesn't exist to be taken as true.

It's a stupid statement coming from the coach, how will he get better if he keeps giving reasons why the team failed, a coach that takes responsibility of hard times in his team, is certain to make upgrades and better his team, it's a silly excuse to include voodoo as a reason why they lost the game.

Stretching this topic is a waste of time, Congo already advanced and Nigeria has to wait another 3 years to see if they can get a World Cup spot or fail again, maybe then we will find a better reason for not qualifying. Our last beat right now is in the AFCON, nothing more.

[Nightwatchmare]

If I was part of the Nigerian NFF today I will have recommended for the sack of Chelle simply because of this his infamous claims that voodoo was the reason why he was not able to take his team to the world cup. This is the highest level of irresponsibility and not owing up for your mistakes and short coming but trying to shifts blame to others. We all watched the shameful performance that the super eagles played especially in the second half it was a very terrible performance from the super eagles. There is no basis upon which this coach will blame voodoo as his teams inability to qualify.

There is so many problems going on in Nigeria and I don't think sacking a coach because of his stupid excuse after losing the qualifier match for world cup participation. Although that was a normal claim which many Nigeria ministers had lied about without no penalty for their actions. Since the super eagles has already lose, there is no need to be stretching this matter.

Super Eagles' failure to qualify for the next edition of the FIFA World Cup I don't think was totally the fault of the coach of the team. In fact, I think it was majorly caused by the poor adminstration of the Nigeria Football Federation. It was their poor management of the team by the NFF that significantly contributed to the team's downfall. If Nigeria actually wants to get it right, the best thing to do is to sack everyone at the NFF especially the names that's being in the federation for over 5 years now.

Sacking the manager wouldn't solve the problem of Nigeria national team football because even with a new experienced manager working under the current NFF, he's unlikely to do better that Eric Chelle as his efforts will be frustrated by the poor admiration.

Sacking the super eagles manager to hire another manager will not solve the problem in the super eagles team because for the past 10 years all the managers who have managed the super eagles have been struggling to win their matches. As far as we have the same greedy people at the NFF, the super eagles will never do well in football, and their performance will keep on dropping gradually. Another way to solve the problem making it difficult for the super eagles to perform well is to make one of the ex super eagles player the president of the NFF.

[Tonimez]

[Edited out]

Sacking the super eagles manager to hire another manager will not solve the problem in the super eagles team because for the past 10 years all the managers who have managed the super eagles have been struggling to win their matches. As far as we have the same greedy people at the NFF, the super eagles will never do well in football, and their performance will keep on dropping gradually. Another way to solve the problem making it difficult for the super eagles to perform well is to make one of the ex super eagles player the president of the NFF.

The problem of the super eagles is more political than managerial. Nigeria is a country that hardly allows autonomy of any unit and this goes on and on in the super eagles decision making. The leadership of the NFF is political too and they don't care what the effects would be on the players. We all witnessed the no-training action exhibited by the super eagles players on arrival at Morocco for their world cup qualifiers playoffs before their game against Gabon. When interviewed, the players revealed that the NFF has refused to pay them their benefits which made them stay away from training before resolutions were made later.

During the super falcons game at Morocco, they suffered same treatment to the extent that their training kits only arrived days to the final game. Thank God they won after everything. The super falcons needs a total overhauling starting from autonomy during call up process and match selections. Coaches are not allowed free liberty to take charge of their lineups but when the error occurs, the coach would be held accountable.

Just like you mentioned, one of our past players should head the NFF, someone like Kanu Nwankwo can deliver well in that regards. Sacking Chelle is the last option when it comes to rebuilding the super falcons because he has done a good job during his short time with the team. His doom started with Finidi George and that's all he tried to cover up the messes caused already.

[Agbe]

The Nigeria football federation is the main problem of the super eagles and not the Manager. The NFF has not been able to create the right environment for development of football in the country, just like any other area of the country sports is also suffering because there is too much politics going on rather than developing our sport and football the number one sport of the country is been run by people who don't have much interest in developing our football. Ask yourself what is the level of investment that has been put into developing our football, what is the state of our league and what investments are been made deliberately to improve our league, in the area of youth development how many youths programs are the NFF sponsoring. Nigeria can't be talking about reaping good results in football because it's that little or no investment has been made in the area of football development.

[IceLincoln]

After Eberechi Eze scored an hattrick against Spurs on Sunday I have been seeing photos of young Eze with the Super Eagles players circulating on the internet. How did Amaju Pinnick not see the talent in Eze and convince him to play for the national team. He was busy flying around the world scouting for big name players all around Europe. It just shows how much the NFF lack vision.

I don't understand, i thought it is the players who has dual citizenship are the ones that decides which country they will play for. It never occurred to me that they are invited by the country's football body and if that's the case then i blame the NFF for not inviting an important star like Eberechi Eze to the national team because imagine if he was in the Super Eagles squad with Victor Osimhen, it would have been a mad combo. It's not late if that's the case because we still have the nations cup to play so they can still invite him to the Super Eagles.

BTCDeybodi it’s very late already, Eberechi Eze is representative of the three lions now he has represented England for several matches in different tournaments, so there’s no way he can play for Nigeria ever.
If our NFF body can put their eyes down and scout out players naturally we have lots of talents in the streets and all over the world waiting to be discovered.
One other thing sometimes this players purposely don’t want to be play for their African Nationalities until they’re sure that their other European or American country wouldn’t call them so they fall back to home who’s ever ready to receive.

[Nightwatchmare]

After Eberechi Eze scored an hattrick against Spurs on Sunday I have been seeing photos of young Eze with the Super Eagles players circulating on the internet. How did Amaju Pinnick not see the talent in Eze and convince him to play for the national team. He was busy flying around the world scouting for big name players all around Europe. It just shows how much the NFF lack vision.

I don't understand, i thought it is the players who has dual citizenship are the ones that decides which country they will play for. It never occurred to me that they are invited by the country's football body and if that's the case then i blame the NFF for not inviting an important star like Eberechi Eze to the national team because imagine if he was in the Super Eagles squad with Victor Osimhen, it would have been a mad combo. It's not late if that's the case because we still have the nations cup to play so they can still invite him to the Super Eagles.

Yes, the players who have dual citizenship have the full right to decide the country they will play for, but that can happen if the players are being called by the two countries they have citizenship with. I think you should not blame the NFF for not inviting an important star player like Eberechi Eze because it could be that the super eagles has a better player in Eberechi Eze's position, which made it difficult for the NFF to call up Eberechi Eze to play for the super eagles. If the NFF call up Eberechi Eze, he can only accept to play for the super eagles he has already wanted to represent Nigeria in country football.

[Wakate]

It's a stupid statement coming from the coach, how will he get better if he keeps giving reasons why the team failed, a coach that takes responsibility of hard times in his team, is certain to make upgrades and better his team, it's a silly excuse to include voodoo as a reason why they lost the game.

Failure should not be justified and I don't know why people are supporting the coach for the rubbish explanation he had given to the Nigerians that had been going to qualify for the world cup. Since Nigeria has already lose the possibility of participating in the world cup by next year, it is better we talk about something else that will help African countries to play very well at the international level so that result can be earned.

[Promocodeudo]

It's a stupid statement coming from the coach, how will he get better if he keeps giving reasons why the team failed, a coach that takes responsibility of hard times in his team, is certain to make upgrades and better his team, it's a silly excuse to include voodoo as a reason why they lost the game.

Stretching this topic is a waste of time, Congo already advanced and Nigeria has to wait another 3 years to see if they can get a World Cup spot or fail again, maybe then we will find a better reason for not qualifying. Our last beat right now is in the AFCON, nothing more.

Are we still talking about this voodoo shit statement, I believe this shit keep reminding people that Nigeria is left behind, if the was looking at himself in the mirror when he made that statement, he would've known that such statement is a disgrace to his person, a man that would've admitted that he was a failure, is looking for a possible means to justify his failure and say he's really a coach, I don't blame him, the country football settings is full of shit, I think we need to start from somewhere, even though is to train our home base till the next world cup but I must be sincere, I don't trust the system, the system has to sanitize before we can it right, bit who's to sanitize the system?

[Stepstowealth]

a man that would've admitted that he was a failure, is looking for a possible means to justify his failure and say he's really a coach,

Calling him a failure seems a bit too harsh, his run of results for the Super Eagles was good, he met a bad result and did his best to give the team a chance. If he was the coach of the Super Eagles from the beginning, we maybe would not have been in the situation we were.

Maybe the NFF should keep him, he already has some good understanding of the players in the team, and maybe we should be able to win the AFCON with him.

[DYOR+BTC]

The Nigeria football federation is the main problem of the super eagles and not the Manager. The NFF has not been able to create the right environment for development of football in the country, just like any other area of the country sports is also suffering because there is too much politics going on rather than developing our sport and football the number one sport of the country is been run by people who don't have much interest in developing our football. Ask yourself what is the level of investment that has been put into developing our football, what is the state of our league and what investments are been made deliberately to improve our league, in the area of youth development how many youths programs are the NFF sponsoring. Nigeria can't be talking about reaping good results in football because it's that little or no investment has been made in the area of football development.

Yes I agree with you, the challenges faced by Nigerias football is not from the managerial department but from the head which is NFF. The Nigeria football federation is a body that is supposed to be governed by football lovers and people with vision but there's are politically elected set of people who's center attention is just to enrich themselves with the resources meant for the development of Nigeria football, contributing to the downfall of the Nigeria football. If all things where the way its supposed to be, Nigeria has what it takes to win the world cup and even appear as the best team in the world but because of the corruption associated with Nigeria football we still remain beneath teams  they are not supposed to.

[Finebone]

a man that would've admitted that he was a failure, is looking for a possible means to justify his failure and say he's really a coach,

Calling him a failure seems a bit too harsh, his run of results for the Super Eagles was good, he met a bad result and did his best to give the team a chance. If he was the coach of the Super Eagles from the beginning, we maybe would not have been in the situation we were.

Maybe the NFF should keep him, he already has some good understanding of the players in the team, and maybe we should be able to win the AFCON with him.

Calling him a failure is not hash, but disrespectful because if he was in the beginning of our world cup qualifiers, we wouldn't have even have to play any play off.
I will always blame our nff because they were the main cause of we not qualifying to the world cup next year, if they weren't busy playing politics with our football by hiring the incompetent rivers united manager, the ex international, we would never had been in such a sorry state when Eric chelle to over, so I will be of support if he is retained till after the nations cup to take a proper look at his performance, if his contract should be extended or not.

[Wakate]

Are we still talking about this voodoo shit statement, I believe this shit keep reminding people that Nigeria is left behind, if the was looking at himself in the mirror when he made that statement, he would've known that such statement is a disgrace to his person, a man that would've admitted that he was a failure, is looking for a possible means to justify his failure and say he's really a coach.

Since the pass government has done something similar to that, I think that is not a new thing for us that have been seeing how corrupt the government as been behaving which is not far from what the coach has done. I think he should be sacked by now if it were supposed to be in another country that valued cleane speech without any atom of deceit to make the whole scene looks like it was not his fault. Who should blame for the poor result of not him as the head coach.