By James Moses (9News Nigeria -Jos)

It was a celebration galore in Nigeria, after the Super Eagles defeated their South Africa counterpart, the Bafana Bafana on penalties after a crucial 90 minutes of 1-1 draw and 30 mitutes of additional time for both teams making 120 minutes of play.

And with Super Eagles poor start to the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers following a 1-1 draw against the Crocodiles of Lesotho in Uyo and the the Brave Warriors of Zimbabwe in Rwanda, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) attached the fate of Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro to the team’s results at the AFCON 2023 in Cote d’ Ivoire.

The Eagles have been far from their best before the AFCON with an unimpressive win to loss ratio and it was shrewd that NFF gave Peseiro the mandate to take Nigeria to at at least the semi-final of the AFCON to have any realistic chance of retaining his job.

Besides, the drastic deduction of pay cut during the renegotiation of his contract last year, his tenure was also tied to the end of AFCON.

Peseiro’s results with the Super Eagles before the AFCON was below expectations, with the team winning only six games, drawing four and losing seven of the 16 games played under his leadership.

The wins were recorded against Sao Tome (twice), Sierra Leone (twice), Guinea Bissau, and Mozambique (which marked Peseiro’s first friendly game success for the Eagles) These are teams the Super Eagles should beat ordinarily with less efforts based on their pedigree and team poor rankings in Africa cum the World.

And with Nigeria being the most populated country in Africa, harbouring over two hundred million people, the Super Eagles in Abuja, Nigeria played a dissapointing 1-0 to visitiing Guinea Bissau, a team over 80 places below Nigeria on the FIFA ranking.

However, the Super Eagles became a reborn entity under Paseiro at the 2023 AFCON in Cote d’ Ivoire. They stated the competition poorly with a dramatic 1-1 draw against Equatorial Guinea, but since then, they have remained strong bold and unbeaten ever since their en-route to their eighth AFCON final appearance against the hosts, Elephants of Ivory Coast on Sunday.

Ahead of the eargerly awaited AFCON 2023 finals match on Sunday against the hosts in Abidjan, Nigerians are on the opinion of asking the the Nigeria football umpire, NFF to renew the contract of the Portuguese tactician, as according to them, he has “fulfilled the mission”, they also argued that his formation and tactics is “unknown” and “highly tactical” to football world.

Açcording to a Sports analyst, who claimed anonimity said: “That man is a great tactician, we were criticising him, but we now knew that he’s superb”.

Best Chukwuemeka, an addict supporter of the Super Eagles said: “When he (Peseiro) substituted Osimhen and Lookman against Bafana Bafana of South Africa, I thought we are finished, but later I believe it was the best decision ever made by the coach.”

Chuwang Choji a footballer said: “We criticizing his formation, but we didn’t know that man had to sneak in our top penalty takers, Jose Peseiro was born for Super Eagles”.

In reaction to the superlative performance of the Portuguese tactician, Former Golden Eaglets coach, Alphonsus Dike stated that with the results the Eagles have posted in Cote d’ Ivoire 2023 AFCON, the NFF should not waste time in extending Peseiro contract, saying, the performance of the Eagles at AFCON, showed the team can achieve more under the tutelage of the Portuguese tactician If he is allowed to continue after the tournament.

Dike who previously coached Iwuanyanwu Nationale (now Heartland FC) and Nasarawa United, noted that Peseiro struggle in pre-AFCON because he was still trying to get the tactics right and now that the boys have understood him, the Eagles are flying and making Nigerians proud and happy.

9News Nigeria.