Former Nigeria international Mutiu Adepoju has warned the Super Eagles that their traditional status as one of Africa’s football giants will no longer guarantee success, insisting other countries on the continent are working harder and rapidly closing the gap.
Adepoju, a member of Nigeria’s celebrated 1994 Africa Cup of Nations-winning team, believes missing consecutive FIFA World Cups should serve as a serious warning to everyone responsible for the national team.
Nigeria failed to qualify for Qatar 2022 and the 2026 World Cup, despite the latter being expanded to 48 teams and providing Africa with increased qualification opportunities. The continent eventually had a record 10 representatives at the tournament.
For Adepoju, popularly known as “The Headmaster,” those failures demonstrate how much African football has changed and why Nigeria cannot continue relying on reputation or the quality of individual players.
The former Real Madrid midfielder stressed that improvement must involve everyone — players, coaches and football administrators — if the Super Eagles are to avoid repeating past disappointments.
Adepoju has consistently urged Nigeria to treat the World Cup setback as a turning point rather than allow it to become a permanent burden. Before the current AFCON qualifying campaign, he challenged the players to put previous disappointments behind them and concentrate on rebuilding.
That rebuilding process has already suffered another setback following the recent 3-0 defeat to Guinea-Bissau, which left Nigeria with three points from their opening two 2027 AFCON qualifiers.
Adepoju described that performance as poor and warned that Nigeria risk turning another qualification campaign into a desperate exercise in calculating results elsewhere.
His warning carries particular weight given his experience during one of Nigerian football’s strongest eras. Adepoju represented the Super Eagles at the 1994, 1998 and 2002 World Cups, when Nigeria qualified for three consecutive editions.
The landscape, he believes, has changed significantly since then.
With more African nations improving their structures and becoming increasingly competitive, Adepoju’s message is that Nigeria must improve at the same speed.
Two successive World Cups have now passed without the Super Eagles. For Adepoju, that is evidence enough that Nigeria can no longer live on reputation — everyone responsible for the team must work to put the country back where it believes it belongs.
