The NFF have given coach Jose Peseiro a target to lead the Super Eagles to at least the semifinals of the 2023 AFCON.
For a team who have won this continental showpiece tournament three times and with the last being in 2013, a semifinal will be the barest minimum.
The Portuguese coach himself has boasted he will win the tournament and he has the backing of star striker Victor Osimhen to do so.
After a couple of weeks of uncertainty, Peseiro has been given the nod to continue in his post till after the AFCON.
Did he merit this contract extension?
No.
The results have not been great – five losses in nine games – and the Eagles are still not playing the great attacking football that was the reason Gernot Rohr was booted out two years ago.
So, the results must improve and the team play better football between now and January 2024, when the AFCON will be staged in the Cote d’Ivoire.
Nigeria boast of one of the most fearsome attacking talent in Africa – Osimhen, Taiwo Awoniyi, Kelechi Iheanacho, Samuel Chukwueze, Victor Boniface, Gift Orban, Terem Moffi, Ademola Lookman, Jerome Akor, Sadiq Umar.
However, there are serious concerns both in defence and midfield.
You will certainly be concerned if your No 1 choice in goal is Francis Uzoho, who still plays his football in the backwater league of Cyprus and if William Ekong is still a fixture in the heart of the back-four after he could not cut it in the English Championship with Watford.
The Sao Tome match should afford Peseiro the chance to see at close quarters other central defenders Bruno Onyemaechi and Jordan Torunarigha after ‘The Oyibo Wall’ crumbled.
Defensive midfielder Wilfred Ndidi was a few years ago one of the genuine top-class players in the Super Eagles, but the proof he has suffered a massive dip in form was that there were no serious takers for him in the recent transfer window.
The form of Raphael Onyedika in defensive midfield for Club Brugge has given some hope, but the creativity in the middle provided by Alex Iwobi and Joe Aribo has yet to bring out the best from the overflowing riches in the Super Eagles attack.
There remains a vacancy for an old-fashioned playmaker who will prompt the attack time and again.
The Sao Tome match in Uyo gives Peseiro and his low-flying Eagles a chance to win public confidence with another big win as well as the expansive attacking football the Portuguese coach has always promised but never delivered.
AFCON hosts Cote d’Ivoire, defending champions Senegal, shock 2022 World Cup semifinalists Morocco, Algeria and Egypt will be among the top favourites to be crowned African champions in January.
The Super Eagles will definitely have to step up big time were they to upstage these heavyweights.
I have serious doubts they will.
The match against the islanders from Sao Tome will also be an opportunity for the Eagles to begin their preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers as two rounds of matches will be played in November with the 2023 AFCON also very much on the horizon.
