Today, Super Eagles coach Eric Chelle will celebrate his 48th birthday.
This will be just two days before Nigeria’s crunch 2026 World Cup Playoffs against Gabon in Rabat, Morocco.
His birthday wish will also be the wish of over 200 million Nigerians – that the Super Eagles win the CAF Playoffs on their way to also winning the Intercontinental Playoffs in Mexico in March to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
Both Eric Chelle and the Super Eagles have come a long way since January when he was appointed the coach of the team.
It took a very brave and confident man to take a huge pay cut from his Algerian club to agree to take over a tattered team, who had lost a staggering nine points in four World Cup qualifiers.
And now come this week, Nigeria somehow got themselves a second chance via the Playoffs to qualify for the Mundial next year after all hope was lost no thanks to a rather poor start to that qualifying campaign.
The former Mali coach led the Super Eagles to win 14 out of a possible 18 points – 4 wins and two draws – to land at these Playoffs.
Eric Chelle wishes to make a name for himself with the Super Eagles and there will be no better setting to do so than to qualify them for the World Cup after they failed to reach the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
He has gone ahead with his mission by getting his team to play with a lot more commitment and intensity as was underlined by the 4-0 spanking of Benin in Uyo on the final day of the World Cup qualifiers.
He has also brought new players and competition by blooding the likes of Benjamin Fredrick, Tolu Arokodare and Jerome Akor into full international level.
The coach is very much aware that how the team fare in the Playoffs will have a serious bearing on their performance at next month’s AFCON, which will also be staged in Morocco.
And as such, the birthday celebrations will be paused until the mission in Morocco has been accomplished.
