The Nigeria Football Federation has named former Super Eagles winger Finidi George as the nation’s senior men’s national team’s new head coach.
In a statement on Monday, the NFF Board endorsed the recommendation of its Technical and Development Committee to entrust the 52-year-old former Ajax Amsterdam and Real Betis forward with the leadership role.
Finidi George, who previously served as an assistant to outgoing coach José Santos Peseiro for 20 months, assumed the interim coaching position following the departure of the Portuguese tactician after the Super Eagles’ impressive performance in reaching the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.
During his interim tenure, George supervised two friendly matches in Morocco last month. The team ended an 18-year winless streak against Ghana with a 2-1 victory before succumbing to a 0-2 loss to Mali.
“George, a member of the so-styled ‘Golden Generation’ that won the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Tunisia and emerged as the second most entertaining team in Nigeria’s debut at the FIFA World Cup finals in USA the same year, won 62 caps for Nigeria, including featuring at the 1994 and 1998 FIFA World Cup finals,” the NFF statement read.
Highlighting George’s illustrious playing career, the statement emphasized his achievements, which include “gold, silver, and bronze medals from the 1992, 1994, 2000, and 2002 AFCON tournaments.”
One of George’s most memorable moments was when he “assisted Rashidi Yekini (of blessed memory) to score Nigeria’s first-ever FIFA World Cup goal against Bulgaria in Dallas, USA on 19th June 1994,” the statement noted.
The new Super Eagles boss’s immediate task will be to guide the team to victory in two crucial 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against South Africa and the Benin Republic in Uyo and Abidjan, respectively, within the next five weeks.
The NFF statement emphasized that “the matches are must-win encounters, with the Super Eagles lagging behind in third place in Group C of the African campaign behind Rwanda and South Africa.”
