Following the Super Eagles of Nigeria new trophy, the Unity Cup trophy, head coach Eric Chelle has said its a start to bigger things. The manager said he hopes to win more trophies with the Super Eagles.
The three-time African champions defeated Jamaica’s Reggae Boys 5-4 on penalties in a thrilling final tie at the Gtech Community Stadium, Brentford on Saturday night. Jamaica got their goals through Kaheim Dixon, and Jonathan Russell, while for Nigeria it was Moses Simon and Chukwueze.
Speaking about the win, head coach Eric Chelle said: “In reality, this is my first trophy as a coach.” “When I was a player, I won trophies, but this is my first as a coach. I hope with this, I can bring more trophies for Nigeria.”
He also said: “In the last press conference, I spoke about my initial thoughts on this tournament. To be honest, I wasn’t in full agreement with it at first because it’s the end of the season. It’s difficult to bring in our players — they’ve had a long, tiring campaign.”
“But then I thought about it again and said, ‘Okay, at least I get to be with my players,’ and that made me happy.” “The second thing is that we have an important goal in September. So I saw this as an opportunity to give many players a chance to show what they can do. And I’m really happy and proud of them because, in just two or three training sessions, they worked really hard. That’s the reality.”
“During this tournament, we scored goals, we created chances, and we showed some very good things in our game. But of course, we still need to work. We have weaknesses. In today’s game, for instance, we made 22 mistakes — that’s a lot.”
The manager did not take out the part for more improvement as he said: “We need to improve. To step up as a group and as a team, especially if we want to qualify for the World Cup.” “If you rewatch today’s game, you’ll see we started with a diamond formation. Around the 25th or 30th minute in the first half, we switched to a 4-2-3-1, and later we played a 4-4-2. I think the players stayed focused throughout,” he stated.
“At the end of the day, I believe we deserved to win this tournament.” “Right now, I can say that my players have a great spirit and a strong mindset. That makes me happy. We’ll keep working and thinking about our game project,” he declared.
“The most important thing for me is that we play together — both in defence and offence. We need to improve all the time, mentally and physically. We must become warriors on the pitch.”
