The immediate past president of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Melvin Amaju Pinnick has urged fans of the round leather game across the country to stay hopeful about the Super Eagles’ chances of qualifying for next year’s FIFA World Cup.
Sports247 reports that, with many Nigerians already despondent, as the Eagles lie fourth in their qualification group, ahead of the restart of action next month, Pinnick stressed that no one should give up until the last whistle of the race.
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The former FIFA Council member added, “The truth is, we should never say never. We should never give up until the final whistle.”
He recounted how a similar scenario almost played out during the race to Russia 2018, with the Eagles even in a tougher group back then, yet the players pulled the chestnut out of the fire at the most crucial point of the qualifiers.
Pinnick noted, “I know the Nigerian mentality, but this group that we are competing in was not as tough as it was in our days.
“I remember a tougher situation when we qualified for the World Cup in 2018. Before the qualifiers even started, Nigeria was not given a chance to qualify.
“The four teams in our group were all AFCON winners. Zambia was there, Cameroon was the reigning AFCON champions, and Algeria had gone close to 20 matches unbeaten.”
He concluded with a hint that the right approach to putting Nigeria’s 2026 World Cup hope back on track is for the officials and administrators to have one-on-one chats with the Eagles’ players, urge them to stay focused and motivate them to put in the best of their efforts.
“The Algerians came to Uyo, they intimidated us with several jets, and all kinds of ideas. I just told our players, ‘Don’t look at what they are doing.’
“That’s how we won the game, and we qualified. The same thing can still happen this year. Let’s just keep working towards it … on and on and on,” Pinnick advocated.
Sports247 reports that the Super Eagles will first host Rwanda next month before playing away to South Africa, after which they will visit Lesotho in October and then end the series at home with Benin Republic in the same month.
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