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The Nigeria Football Federation may name a new foreign coach that will lead the Super Eagles to the Cameroon 2022 African Nations Cup next week, Megasportsarena.com reports.
NFF President Amaju Pinnick disclosed in Lagos on Thursday that the Federation has reached an advanced stage to recruit a new technical adviser for the Super Eagles and he will be unveiled sometime next week, other things being equal.
“We have spoken to three top coaches and next week, the Federation will announce the name of the new manager.”
Pinnick revealed that the NFF has interviewed the three coaches, who made the shortlist of candidates for the job.
“The thing is that every top coach wants to coach Nigeria, but our emphasis is on discipline. We have looked at the coaches’ antecedents and the technical and executive committees of the Federation have chosen from the three.
“We want a coach that is ready for the challenge immediately. He must be somebody that the players will respect.
“I had an interface with Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho on our search for a new coach. The sports minister also spoke with Mourinho.
“Our last coach stayed up to five years, which shows that we are a steady country. We don’t want to be going back and forth. We want everything in a near-perfect situation.”
Megasportsarena.com understands that Jose Peseiro and Mladen Krstajic are two of the three names being bandied for the Nigerian job, with Peseiro seen as the favourite.
Pinnick insists that the team’s interim manager, who doubles as the NFF Technical Director, Austin Eguavoen has a vital role to play in the system and may even become the permanent coach should he win the Africa Cup of Nations title.
“We know that Eguavoen can do the job expertly, but we also know that he will be more useful controlling the technical department.
“However, if we cannot get the coaches to start work immediately, we will empower him to take the team to Cameroun. And if Eguavoen wins the Nations Cup, we might have a rethink. In that case, the foreign coach will now become the technical director, while Eguavoen takes the position of technical adviser.”
The AFCON kicks off on January 9, 2022, in Cameroon.
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