Super Eagles’ coach, Gernot Rohr has cast his mind back on happenings of 2020, and concluded that it was a year replete with several woes that affected him and his players, thereby causing several poor results for the team, megasportsarena.com reports.
The Franco-German tactician admitted that the outbreak of coronavirus accounted for most of the woes the Eagles faced all through 2020, and the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations bronze medalists eventually ended the year without a single victory.
In contrast with all great expectations with which the Eagles stated the year, they ended 2020 without a win in four matches, having lost their first game to Algeria, the same side that beat them in the semi-finals of AFCON 2019, then drew the other three matches, first against Tunisia in an international friendly and then twice to Sierra Leone in the 2022 AFCON qualifiers.
Rohr, though, blamed COVID-19 for the loss to Algeria during a friendly in Austria last October, as he missed the presence of several of his regulars, and the former Niger Republic, Gabon and Burkina Faso handler believes that set the stage for other poor results for his squad.
Indeed, for the game against Algeria, Victor Osimhen was barred by his Italian club from joining the Eagles’ camp, as all of Napoli’s players were ordered into quarantine following three positive COVID-19 cases in their team, while Oghenekaro Etebo, Daniel Akpeyi, Joe Aribo and Wilfred Onyinyen Ndidi pulled out of the Nigerian side due to injuries.
The Eagles eventually went on to lose that game by a lone goal, as Ramy Bensebaini decided the outcome with a left-footed shot from the center of the box as early as the sixth minute of play, and Rohr has now reflected on that game as the highlight of a torrid 2020 for him and his team.
Rohr told Mannheimer Morgen: “The defeat against Algeria in October was the first international match after an eleven-month break. We were missing half of the team because Covid-19 made it difficult to get everyone together.
“You weren’t even allowed to come from some European countries like England or Italy, where I have important players. It was not a year, especially for national teams, to which one can apply normal standards.”
