Nigeria Men’s National Team head coach Eric Chelle believes his side was not mentally ready to compete at the ongoing 2024 African Nations Championship tournament.
The Super Eagles beat Congo 2-0 at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium to deny them a chance to progress to the knockout stages of the competition.
Nigeria’s elimination confirmed last week after they lost 4-0 to Sudan in their group match.
The Super Eagles had 3 points and finished third in their group.
In a post-match interview, Chelle expressed satisfaction with the team’s final performance.
“We showed our technical ability in the last part of the match, but we lost several balls before that,” he said.
“In any case we played well. Our performance was great, and we deserved to win the match. I really feel sorry because our last match was good, but the previous two matches had mistakes. We started at a high speed and had a lot of possession,” added the coach.
“The preparations for a CHAN tournament should start a year in advance.
“We weren’t ready to participate in this tournament. Whoever attends our training sessions will notice that our players weren’t mentally prepared to participate in this version of the tournament,” he said.
“Our deep regrets stem from our heavy defeat to Sudan, but that’s football. We will carefully analyze the Sudan match to make up for what happened in the future,” he admitted.
Meanwhile, Nigeria will seek to bounce back stronger in the next version of the CHAN tournament after facing an early elimination from the tournament.
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