The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Monday reconstituted the technical crew of the Super Eagles with Augustine Eguavoen maintained to head the Interim Technical Adviser.
This means that the association may no longer continue with the arrangement put forward to get a Portuguese Coach, Jose Peseiro, to replace Gernot Rohr.
Eguavoen who was drafted to lead the national team immediately after the former coach was sacked, led the team to the just concluded AFCON 2021 in Cameroon where the Super Eagles came top in the group stage, by winning all its three matches before crashing out of the Round of 16.
To strengthen the technical bench ahead of 2022 World Cup playoff against Ghana’s Black Stars, the federation also drafted former Nigeria World Cup star and former U20 Boys’ Head Coach, Emmanuel Amuneke as immediate assistant to Eguavoen.
Dr Mohammed Sanusi announced, NFF General Secretary, had announced that the NFF board has approved a recommendation of the Technical and Development Committee retaining Augustine Eguavoen as Technical Director/Technical Adviser (interim) while Emmanuel Amuneke becomes the Chief Coach of the Super Eagles. Salisu Yusuf will be the 2nd Assistant Coach/Chief Coach of the CHAN team and Joseph Yobo will be 3rd Assistant while Aloysius Agu remains the Goalkeepers’ Trainer,”
He said the reconstitution comes after the Super Eagles’ outing at the 33rd Africa Cup of Nations finals in Cameroon, and ahead of the potentially –explosive FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 play-off round against the Black Stars of Ghana next month.
Sanusi added: “We acknowledge and appreciate the interest that Mr Jose Peseiro has shown in Nigeria Football during our very cordial discussions and have absolutely no doubt about his capacity. We believe that perhaps in the future, there could be an opportunity to work with him. However, in view of the positive performance of the Super Eagles at the just-concluded Africa Cup of Nations which has given hope to Nigerians and boosted our confidence in the present coaching crew to qualify us for the World Cup in Qatar, we have decided to accept the recommendation of the Technical and Development Committee to retain the Eguavoen-led coaching crew and strengthen it with the addition of Emmanuel Amuneke.”