The appointment of Austine Eguavoen as the interim coach of the senior national team of Nigeria has drawn contrasting reactions from two influential figures in the history of Nigerian football, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
They both aired their opinion through the online version of Nigeria’s print outfit the Nation with James Peter, a former technical director of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) the first to give his opinion.
He criticized the appointment on the basis of Eguavoen’s failure to deliver on the separate occasions he has been given the chance to be in charge of the team , citing the most recent one which was the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
“We are walking on a tight rope and I don’t think Eguavoen has the capacity; and at this stage, it’s a hopeless situation,” the septuagenarian said on a radio programme via The Nations.
“We have wasted so much time talking back and forth about the coaches they (NFF) wanted to take and this (appointment of Eguavoen) doesn’t make anyone look responsible at all because what Eguavoen will do would be nothing to write home about.”
Gernot Rohr who was in charge of the Super Eagles for a period of almost seven years and worked with Eguavoen for around two years was however of a different opinion. He termed the appointment as positive saying it puts the Super Eagles in a good position against his team in this weekend’s AFCON 2025 qualifiers.
On Eguavoen’s failure to steer the Super Eagles to the world cup in Qatar shortly after replacing him as coach, Rohr said he believe the coach must have learnt a thing or two about why the team failed to go past Ghana in the playoffs.
“I think Eguavoen knows them (the Super Eagles) better than a new coach,” Rohr, who has managed other Africa’s national teams including Niger, Burkina Faso and Gabon, told NationSports.
“He surely must have learned from the two eliminations (for Qatar 2022 and AFCON 2021) and, perhaps, his team could be more dangerous to deal with,” the 71-year-old former Bordeaux trainer, who led The Cheetahs to their historic first official victory over Nigeria last June in Abidjan, noted.
