JUST IN: NFF APPOINTS FINIDI GEORGE AS SUPER EAGLES’ HEAD COACH
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Former Super Eagles winger Finidi George has been named by the Nigeria Football Federation as the senior men’s national team’s new head coach.
The 52-year-old former Real Betis and Ajax Amsterdam forward was given the reins after the NFF Board approved the recommendation of its Technical and Development Committee, according to a statement released on Monday.
Following the Super Eagles’ remarkable run to the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire, José Santos Peseiro, a Portuguese strategist, stepped down, and Finidi George, who had worked as his assistant for 20 months, took over as temporary coach.
George oversaw two friendly matches in Morocco last month while serving as interim manager. The team won 2-1 against Ghana to snap an 18-year winless drought, but then lost 0-2 to Mali.
“George, a member of the so-styled ‘Golden Generation’ that won the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Tunisia and emerged as the second most entertaining team in Nigeria’s debut at the FIFA World Cup finals in USA the same year, won 62 caps for Nigeria, including featuring at the 1994 and 1998 FIFA World Cup finals,” the NFF statement read.
Reflecting on his illustrious playing career, the statement highlighted George’s achievements, which include “gold, silver and bronze medals from the 1992, 1994, 2000 and 2002 AFCON tournaments.”
One of George’s most memorable moments came when he “assisted Rashidi Yekini (of blessed memory) to score Nigeria’s first-ever FIFA World Cup goal against Bulgaria in Dallas, USA on 19th June 1994,” the statement noted.
The new Super Eagles boss’s immediate task will be to guide the team to victory in two crucial 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against South Africa and the Benin Republic in Uyo and Abidjan, respectively, within the next five weeks.
The NFF statement emphasised that “the matches are must-win encounters, with the Super Eagles lagging behind in third place in Group C of the African campaign behind Rwanda and South Africa.”
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