Peseiro Must Go, Angry Nigerian Fans Tell NFF
Top football stakeholders in the country have called on the Nigeria Football Federation to sack Jose Peseiro, following the Super Eagles’ uninspiring 1-0 loss to Guinea-Bissau in a 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja last Saturday.
A first-half strike from Mama Balde secured a comfortable win for the Djurtus, who move one point clear of the Eagles to top Group A, with three games to play.
The defeat dented Eagles’ AFCON qualification hopes, but boost the Djurtus chances of reaching the continental showpiece for a second consecutive time in Ivory Coast, having appeared at the delayed edition in Cameroon last year.
AFCON Qualifiers: Super Eagles Suffer 1–0 Home Loss Against Guinea Bissau
It was the first time in three decades that the Eagles failed to win a game in three straight games.
The three time African champions suffered earlier friendly defeats in the hands of Algeria (2-1), Portugal (4-0) and Guinea Bissau 1-0.
Since Peseiro took charge as coach of the Eagles, he has recorded only two wins against Sierra Leone and Sao Tome in the seven games that he has been with the three-time African champions.
He was not with the team when they lost to Costa Rica in a pre-World Cup friendly last November.
Former Eagles defender Sam Sodje believes Peseiro’s defensive frailties were exposed by the Djurtus.
“You can’t win games if you do not defend well as a team,” Sodje said.
“He (Peseiro) should leave. Even the best teams defend well as a unit. We lost to Djurtus because they defended well.”
Ace sports broadcaster, Temisan Okomi, questioned the competence of Peseiro and his technical abilities.
“At the rate we are going I don’t even know if we have a coaching problem or a team problem,” Okomi began.
“The truth of the matter is that Peseiro is absolutely not useful as a coach to us. Its not working at all. He has only won two games in seven games, its untenable. The problem we have is that we cannot even sack him because we don’t have money but if we can, the NFF should sack him immediately.
“Peseiro has not worked for us and we need to find another coach fast.”
Football analyst Ralph Chidozie-George told Saturday PUNCH that Peseiro should be replaced to avoid further embarrassing results.
“Peseiro does not deserve to be the coach of the Eagles,” Chidozie-George said.
“The Eagles job is bigger than him. He does not have what it takes to coach Nigeria. He also does not have the strong will to lead the team.
“From his results, we’ve only been able to beat Sierra Leone and Sao Tome and another low country as Guinea-Bissau just defeated the Eagles at home and he has lost all his friendly games. This is not the coach that will take the Eagles beyond the mediocre level Gernot Rohr left the team.
“His list of players for the game doesn’t look like a team selected based on current form, and as you can, see all the players who struggled for game time at their respective clubs messed up our game against Guinea-Bissau.”
Afolabi Gambari, another journalist, believes Peseiro lacks the technical ability to lead the Eagles out of the doldrums.
“Peseiro’s competence is suspect, as far as I know,”Gambari said.
“He is clueless and not desirable of the Eagles and because of the cost, he should just go away.”
Punch/Samuel Isaiah
