The Nigeria Football Federation inquest of a new head coach for the Super Eagles interviewed quite a lot of coaches including Aitor Karanka, ex assistant to Jose Mourinho and 2006 World Cup winner, Fabio Cannavaro.
The federation later appointed former Stuttgart boss, Bruno Labbadia as their new men's head coach ahead of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign but that was after a number managers declined or refused the financial terms proposed.
Herve Renard was the first on the list of the Ibrahim Gusau led board, but the idea look infertile from the get go. For a federation who couldn’t extend the contract of his former coach, Jose Peseiro, primarily due disagreement in new asking price of $100,000 from $50,000, paying $150,000 to the French tactician who has two African Cup titles will surely be a conundrum.
Janne Andersson, a former head coach of the Sweden national team, reportedly agreed to coach the three-time African champions but despite Andersson being so close to landing the job, the 61 year-old was far from the reality.
“It’s a huge footballing nation. I can confirm that I have had a dialogue with the Nigeria Football Federation,” he told Swedish newspaper, Expressen.
With the Super Eagles on a poor run of one win from four games since finishing first runners up at the 2023 AFCON, and Finidi George stepping down from the role, NFF was desperately in need of a new shepherd for the team and so held talks with former Sunderland, Brighton and Greece manager Gustavo Poyet, Karanka, who had spells in charge of Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough, and former Italy captain Cannavaro.
However, the federation out of the blues chose Bruno Labbadia as the head coach of the Super Eagles.
Now that the search is over, Labbadia surely has an hectic task ahead of him starting with the qualifiers against Benin Republic and Rwanda next month before the climbing the mountain of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.
By Olujimi Dare Ogun