Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president, Amaju Melvin Pinnick has read out the riot order for all of the country’s national teams, as he says they must all think only of winning their matches in the year 2020, as mere participation and gallant efforts in defeat will no longer be condoned, megasportsarena.com can report.
Speaking against the backdrop of woeful performances by almost all of Nigeria’s teams, at both senior and youth level, female and male, Pinnick stressed that the setbacks of 2019 must not be repeated in the New Year, in which he expects better performances across board.
He also spoke about what the NFF will also do on their part to boost the round leather game in 2020, during which focus will be on various qualifying matches for major competitions as well as additional impetus in youth and grassroots development programs.
He hinted that the female national team, Super Falcons will have to hit the ground running, as the nine time African champions have a qualifying round to negotiate before heading to the Women Cup of Nations to defend the crown that they have won from 2014 to 2018.
The female youth teams, Falconets for the under-20 cadre and the under-17 squad, Flamingos, also have qualifying matches respectively, for the 2020 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup to be co-hosted by Costa Rica and Panama, as well as FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup billed for India.
Both teams will need better efforts to excel at the global level, where they fell short in 2019, just as was the case with the Flying Eagles at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland and Golden Eaglets at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Brazil, while the under-23 team failed to qualify for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and home-based Eagles could not reach the Championship of African Nations.
However, it has been a different story with the Eagles, who took bronze after finishing third among 24 participating teams at the expanded Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, after which they went on to garner two pulsating draws in international friendlies against Ukraine and Brazil.
The Eagles are also in command of their pool in the qualifying race for the 33rd Africa Cup of Nations of 2021 in Cameroon, with two wins out of two games, against Benin Republic and Lesotho, with the race set to resume in August 2020.
They will now set sight on the draw for the qualifying campaign of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, with the event billed to hold in Egypt on January 21, with 10 groups of four teams each that will produce only the winner from each group advancing to a fierce, five home-and-away battles which will eventually produce Africa’s flag bearers in Qatar.
Ahead of the busy campaign for all the Nigerian teams in 2020, Pinnick stressed that the nation’s football governing body will expect all the teams to be successful in their qualifying races and then go on to excel during the competitions proper, especially with the Eagles for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
He also put emphasis on victories that are expected in the Falcons’ qualifiers for the 12th edition of the Africa Women Cup of Nations, as well as the under-17 and under-20 girls, all of which he said the NFF are expecting nothing short of success in their different FIFA World Cup events.
Pinnick told NFF’s communications department: “Teams representing Nigeria in international matches and competitions will be told in no uncertain terms that they are expected to win, not just participate. The era of simply being there to participate is long gone.
“We are also determined to concentrate much effort and resources on youth development programmes, including but not limited to the NFF/Zenith Bank Future Eagles Programme.
“It is important that we continue to churn out quality talents and work hard to nurture them to excellent products who will then fit into the age-grade National Teams and bring honour to the nation at various championships.”
