Former Super Eagles left-back Juwon Oshaniwa has described Nigeria’s 3-0 defeat to Guinea-Bissau as the worst performance of the Eric Chelle era, insisting the scale of the collapse makes it impossible to blame one player.
The Super Eagles suffered a damaging setback in their 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign on Tuesday as goals from Franculino Djú, Mama Baldé and Álvaro Djaló handed Guinea-Bissau a comprehensive victory at the 24 September Stadium.
For Oshaniwa, who had warned before the opening qualifier against Madagascar that Nigeria needed to take every opponent seriously, the manner of Tuesday’s defeat was particularly disturbing.
“This is the worst performance I have seen from the team since Eric Chelle became the coach,” Oshaniwa said.
The 2013 AFCON winner struggled to remember a recent Super Eagles performance that compared with what unfolded in Bissau and rejected attempts to explain away the result.
“I can’t even remember the last time we had such a poor outing,” he said. “There is no excuse for a performance like this.”
Nigeria struggled to impose themselves throughout the encounter. Guinea-Bissau opened the scoring after just 15 minutes through Djú before Baldé doubled the advantage in the second half. Djaló then completed the rout deep into stoppage time.
Chelle himself admitted afterwards that Guinea-Bissau displayed greater aggression and personality and that Nigeria struggled to find solutions against the hosts.
But Oshaniwa believes the collective nature of Nigeria’s failure means criticism cannot reasonably be restricted to one defender, midfielder, attacker or even one particular moment.
“You cannot single out anybody after a display like that,” he maintained. “The whole performance was dreadful.”
The result leaves Nigeria on three points from two matches, while Guinea-Bissau have taken maximum points and moved clear at the top of Group L.
For Oshaniwa, therefore, the biggest concern is not simply that Nigeria lost.
It is that, on a night when a response was required, virtually nothing about the Super Eagles’ collective performance provided an acceptable explanation for losing 3-0.
