Former Nigeria assistant coach Usman Abdallah in exclusive interview with Footy-Africa says he has “little hope” of the Super Eagles winning the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, despite their recent run to the final.
Nigeria were beaten finalists at the 2023 tournament in Côte d’Ivoire, but Abdallah believes a poor run of form over the past year — which included failure to qualify for the 2026 Fifa World Cup — has damaged their title credentials.
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“I do not have high hopes of the team winning the Nations Cup,” Abdallah exclusively told Footy-Africa. “Some people believe they can win simply because we reached the final last time and because we failed to qualify for the World Cup. In my opinion, this team is not as strong as last year’s squad. It is almost the same set of players that failed to qualify for the World Cup.”
Nigeria have won the Africa Cup of Nations three times — in 1980, 1994 and 2013 — and have finished runners-up on four occasions.
The Super Eagles begin their Group C campaign against Tanzania on Tuesday before matches against Tunisia and Uganda. Eric Chelle’s side are widely tipped to progress from the group, but Abdallah has urged caution.
“We need to stop judging teams by their country names and start assessing them based on the quality of players they have,” he said. “We have struggled against smaller teams before, and I hope we do not struggle against Tanzania. They may be a small country, but they have a good set of players. Apart from Tanzania and Uganda, there are other strong teams as well. South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal are good teams that are also capable of winning the competition.”
Abdallah also questioned the Nigeria Football Federation’s decision to retain much of the current squad, arguing the tournament should have been used to rebuild after consecutive World Cup qualification failures.
“After the World Cup qualifiers failure, I suggested we build a new team, drop some players and invite an entirely new group, using this Nations Cup to prepare for the future.
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We could keep players like Victor Osimhen, Ademola Lookman, Calvin Bassey and Samuel Chukwueze, along with some younger players, and then invite new talents. We should give the team about four years to develop, and we need to stop thinking about winning all the time,” Abdallah concluded.
Abdallah previously served as an assistant to Gernot Rohr, the last coach to guide Nigeria to the World Cup in 2018. Under Rohr, the Super Eagles also won bronze at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.
