A backroom staff of the senior national team of Nigeria has revealed how inept the technical crew of the team were during the course of the 1-1 draw against Ghana in Abuja.
The result cost Nigeria a spot at the World Cup base on away goal rule as the first leg in Ghana ended in a 0-0 draw. Already the crew have been dismissed by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
Reacting a backroom staff who crave annoymity said the entire coaching set up looked uncoordinated for an assignment of that magnitude. He said technically and tactically they were out of their depth in that game.
He specifically mentioned their inability to decipher that Ghana has switched to a back five until a player whom he said is either Victor Osimhen or Odion Ighalo told them that Ghana switched at the start of the second half.
According to our source, the crew wouldn’t have introduced Shehu Abdullahi for Frank Onyeka if they were aware that the Ghanaian team has switched to a back of five at the start of the second half.
We also gathered that there was interference in the starting lineup with instructions from the top to coach Austine Eguavoen to field the duo of Emmanuel Dennis and Ademola Lookman from the start.
Per what we heard, the idea was to start Moses Simon on the left and head coach Emmanuel Amuneke had a one on one session with the Nantes winger detailing to him how he can team up with Osimhen in attack.
Amuneke wasn’t aware that Simon won’t be starting until few hours to the match. The former Nigeria U17 coach was also not in support of the decision to start Emmanuel Dennis, as he believes he is more efficient when the team have the ball and not when they needed to fight for it like it was from the start against Ghana.
It was Dennis who left the player who laid the pass for Thomas Partey to score what ended as the clincher for Ghana. Dennis walked away instead of closing him down making it easy for him to lay the pass to Partey.
