A former assistant coach in the Super Eagles, Sylvanus Okpala has charged the Nigerian national team’s current handler, Eric Sekou Chelle, to repeat the country’s 2013 Africa Cup of Nations winning heroics, Sports247 reports.
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Okpala, who was an assistant to late Stephen Keshi in the technical crew that surprisingly marshalled a rag-tag squad to win AFCON 2013, reasoned that the current team is loaded with quality stars who have no excuses not to win the upcoming championship.
The ex-international midfielder, who was fondly called ‘Quicksilver’ during his heyday, averred: “We have players who can win the Nations Cup for us. I remember in 2013, we never had the kind of quality players that are in this team.
“At that point, there was only Mikel (Obi) and (Vincent) Enyeama … who again? We then had home-based players, and we were able to blend them.
“We used them to beat almighty (Didier) Drogba, Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure, (Salomon) Kalou, name them. We managed what we had, and we won the cup in South Africa.”
Okpala stressed that Chelle, who hails from Mali and coached his country’s team at the last AFCON, should be able to follow the example of Keshi, who earlier handled the same Francophone West African nation’s squad, and use Nigeria’s array of stars to rule Maroc 2025.
“In 2013, we did not have these kind of seasoned players, who feature week-in-week-out for big clubs in Europe. With this present squad, the coach has players who can even win the World Cup
“Anytime we go for the Nations Cup, we should always go there to win it; not just to participate. The height of Nigeria today is in African football.
“That’s why we should go to this Nations Cup to win it. People say it’s not compulsory that we must win it, but that does not mean we should not think of winning it. That’s our main purpose of going there,” Okpala stressed.
