By Ola Kay
Former Super Eagles winger, Finidi George has been appointed as the new head coach of the national team, by the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF.
A statement by the NFF on Monday informed that the NFF Board approved the recommendation of its Technical and Development Committee to hand over the Super Eagles top job to Finidi George, 52-year-old former Ajax Amsterdam and Real Betis forward player.
It would be recalled that the newly appointed head coach had spent 20 months as an assistant to the outgoing José Santos Peseiro, who served as the interim coach after the Portuguese tactician’s exit, following the senior male national team’s impressive run to the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.
At the time, Finidi George, midwifed two friendly matches in Morocco last month, where the team ended an 18-year winless streak against Ghana with a 2-1 victory before suffering a 0-2 loss to Mali.
The NFF statement read that, “George, a member of the so-styled ‘Golden Generation’ that won the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Tunisia and emerged as the second most entertaining team in Nigeria’s debut at the FIFA World Cup finals in USA the same year, won 62 caps for Nigeria, including featuring at the 1994 and 1998 FIFA World Cup finals.”
Some of the new national coach’s achievements include “gold, silver and bronze medals from the 1992, 1994, 2000 and 2002 AFCON tournaments.
”One of George’s most memorable moments came when he “assisted Rashidi Yekini (of blessed memory) to score Nigeria’s first-ever FIFA World Cup goal against Bulgaria in Dallas, USA on 19th June 1994,” according to the statement.
But, some of the tasks ahead of the new national team coach include making efforts to guide the team to victory in two crucial 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against South Africa and the Benin Republic in Uyo and Abidjan, respectively, within the next five weeks.
About The Author
