Janne Andersson is expected to take over as the new coach of the senior national team of Nigeria ahead of their first set of games in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers games against Benin Republic and Rwanda respectively, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Andersson will however not be on the touchline when the team plays in September due to a running media contract, which is due to expire by the end of next month making him eligible to be in the dugout for the Super Eagles in subsequent games in October and November respectively.
The coach who spent seven years as the coach of Sweden notably leading them to the quarter final of the 2018 world cup was caught up in a players row with the country’s most decorated and celebrated star Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2021.
Ibrahimovic described the omission of Dejan Kulusevski from the Sweden starting line-up to play France in September that year as “an absolute joke. “More proof that incompetent people in the wrong positions are suffocating Swedish football,” continued Ibrahimovic via Twitter.
It could only be interpreted as a stinging criticism of Andersson, the then Sweden coach. And yet, within weeks of those words, the pair were in discussions to end the striker’s five years international exile, with the coach demonstrating his ability to manage dispute, something he will likely face when he takes over as coach of Nigeria.
“You have to do that if there is a player like Zlatan. My job is to get results and if there is a player who is good enough to be in the team then, of course, I have to investigate and talk to him. I have to try to find a way that we can work together”, he explained why defending his decision to bring back the giant striker.
Pressed on how he sets up his team, the coach in that same interview said as much as he wants his team to attack, there is still the need to find a balance between doing that and defending.
“We will be hard, compact and difficult to score goals against. We need to have more possession, we need to attack, but we also need to be strong defensively and not lose.
“If you go back to the World Cup, we were really strong on the defence and then we could score on the counter-attack. Now we are able to have more possession than we used to have but we still have to find the right balance to get the best results.”
It means fans of the Super Eagles should expect a team that will be tough to beat and not necessarily flamboyant in their style, but good enough to get the much needed results.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman