A former Nigeria international, Tijani Babangida, calls the attention of Super Eagles head Coach, José Peseiro on the importance of taking every AFCON fixture serious npflupdates.com reports.
Tijani Babangida is worried with the current pattern of trend in world football, adding that a lot has changed since he hung his boots almost two decades ago.
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The former Roda JC winger, stressed that national teams, who in the past were once considered minnows and pushovers, have greatly improved making it difficult to dictate favourites.
Speaking in an interview reported by Guardian the former Ajax Amsterdam star stated that the level of competitiveness of the competition in2023 requires the selection of the right players. And also the dedication of the players and coaching crew, as he always identify lapses when Super Eagles play games.
What Tijani Babangida said about the Super Eagles ahead of 2023 AFCON
“Whenever the Super Eagles play these days, I do see their lapses sometimes, we can see that the game in Africa and the world has changed,” he said.
According to Tijani, some teams during their time are being considered minnows, while some favourites. But, it doesn’t seem to be the same in modern day football.
“In the past, you can write off some countries and say these are the favorites,” Tijani started.
“But in today’s football, you can see that the Super Eagles struggle with counties in the size of Niger Republic, they are no more pushovers.
“If you see what is happening, we have our own issues, as you can see in our World Cup qualifiers, we struggled to get a 1-1 at home, we struggled to get another 1-1 away.”
He added, “So, you cannot just give our country anything to think that the Nations Cup is a playground.
“We have to buckle up, we have the players and must get the right players to camp if we hope to excel at next year’s Nation’s Cup.”
Tijani Babangida was part of the Olympic Eagles(U-23) team that won gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics,(football, men’s category).
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Nigeria will hope to win a fourth AFCON title in Ivory Coast after winning it’s third a decade ago. Questions have been raised as to whether coach José Peseiro, is the right man to lead the Super Eagles to glory, despite the national team having very awful outings with him.
