The former coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Gernot Rohr says the team would have won the Africa Cup of Nations and also made it to the World Cup in Qatar if he wasn’t sacked by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
Rohr was fired with just three weeks to the Africa Cup of Nations, which was a little over three months to the World Cup qualifiers playoff games against Ghana. Nigeria ended up crashing out of the first elimination round at the AFCON and later failed to make it to the World Cup.
He holds the record of the longest ever serving head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria as he was at the helm from 2016 till 2021 when he was surprisingly axed from his role, few hours after Nigeria made it to the playoff stages of the world cup qualifiers by finishing as group winners.
” We were still celebrating when the news came that I have been sacked as coach. They claimed it was an order from the top. I was in shock. This came at a time when I feel we are almost getting close to making out project for the team work”, he told OwnGoalNigeria.com.
” The aim was winning the AFCON and we had plans for a team that would have won it and also qualified for the World Cup. There was a plan to integrate new players using the AFCON and also the pre world cup friendly games. I can’t think of any player in the team now that we didn’t have in our plan or gave a call up. I’m sad for my players “, he concluded.
