Chelle Locks out Content Creators from Eagles Training in Morocco

•Insists: “Our tactics must be protected and not be allowed to leak out”

Duro Ikhazuagbe

Ahead of Monday’s crucial AFCON 2025 Round of 16 clash with Mozambique’s Mambas, Nigeria’s Head Coach, Eric Chelle, has activated strict disciplinary procedures around the Super Eagles at their base in Fes, Morocco.

To prevent team’s game-plan from getting leaked, Chelle yesterday told reporter in Fes that he has banned content creators from having access to Eagles as well as to training ground for the next three days.

“There’s absolutely a ban on content creators for now,” began the Franco-Malian tactician.

He insisted that Super Eagles tactics must be protected from opponents.

“Our tactics must be protected and not be allowed to leak out,” Eric Chelle thundered in the midst of mostly Nigeria journalists covering the tournament in Morocco.

“No content creator will be allowed coverage of our training to avoid leaking our tactics to opponents, until after three days,” stressed Chelle who is desirous of making history with the three-time African champions in Morocco.

Also speaking on his selection as Coach of CAF’s  Team XI of the Group Stage of the AFCON 2025, Chelle was unfazed by the honour.

He said: “I am happy about this recognition. But I will like to give the credit to my backroom staff who work tirelessly to make the team function. This development is a good motivation for me, the players and the entire squad.

Chelle however have his eyes on the big picture instead of personal achievements. “However, this is not why we are here. We are here for something bigger and better (winning the AFCON). We will not get ahead of ourselves and think we are the best. We will continue to work hard and stay focused for every match as it comes,” he concluded with optimism.

Chelle has drummed it into the players’ ears that knockout character must be assumed as they look forward to Monday’s crunch encounter, with pragmatism to be preferred over sensationalism.

Ademola Lookman who has two-goal and two-assist so far is the only Nigerian player in the Team of the Group Stage announced by CAF at the weekend after the conclusion of the games of that stage of the tournament in Morocco.

Hosts Morocco had two players in the squad with Mazraoui and Brahim. Egypt had El Shenawy in goal with DR Congo’s Tuanzebe and Burkina Faso’s Tapsoba. Also listed are: Tunisia’s Abdi, Cameroon’s Baleba, Senegal’s Mane, Côte d’Ivoire’s Amad, and Algeria’s Mahrez completing the squad.

Meanwhile, Super Eagles will resume training this evening at 6pm  inside the Sardienne Complex  without Cyriel Dessers who has returned to his club in Greece and injured Ryan Alebiosu who on the road to full recovery.

England-based Alebiosu did not participate as he is recovering from a leg injury incurred during Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat of Uganda’s Cranes to make for a perfect nine points out of nine in the group phase.

Greece-based  Dessers has returned to his club, owing to a thigh injury, while midfielder Tochukwu Nnadi, who featured as a second-half substitute against the Cranes on Tuesday, has a cold and did not train.

Chelle is unbeaten in regulation time in 13 competitive matches for Nigeria, since his first outing with the Super Eagles in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Rwanda in Kigali on 21st March last year, and has seen his playing personnel walk off the pitch heads bowed only on two occasions – the FIFA World Cup sudden-death penalty heartbreak against DR Congo in Rabat in November and the 1-2 friendly reverse against the Pharaohs of Egypt in Cairo last month.