Adeboye Calls on Nigerians to Emulate Moroccans on How to Support National Teams

*Says Eric Chelle has done well to deserve contract renewal

Duro Ikhazuagbe

The Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Grassroots Sports, Hon. Adeyinka Anthony Adeboye (Zulu), has called on Nigerians to learn from the example of the Moroccans at the just concluded 35th Africa Cup of Nations that the North African country hosted.

Adeboye insisted that the patriotism showed by the Moroccans in coming out en-mass,  branded in the country’s red jerseys, was worth emulating.

“In all matches played by Morocco, their fans came out in their numbers, decked in the country’s red-coloured jerseys.

“They danced and sang from the first whistle till the final kick  of the 120 minutes during their semifinal clash with  Nigeria. Over 75 percent of the stands were in red jerseys. This is called patriotism. This is how to support a country’s national team.

“In our case back home, most times you see Nigerian fans wearing Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona or even Manchester United jerseys to stadium to support the Super Eagles. I think this must stop henceforth. We must take pride in wearing our green and white jerseys to support our national teams. We should not love foreign clubs or teams more than our own national teams. Nowhere that is done,” observed the Presidential aide who was at the AFCON tournament to support the Super Eagles all through their campaigns.

While praising the Super Eagles for putting up brilliant performance all through the tournament, Adeboye insisted that there was little that the Nigerian team could have done in the semifinal in the face of intimidation and support for the home team by the match officials

“I said it before that semifinal match that our boys should be prepared to play against 13 players  instead of 11. The  Moroccan team had the support of the match officials as well as having over 65,000 of their fans roaring from the stands inside the stadium. For Super Eagles to have stretched the match into extra time and even penalty shootouts, speaks volume of the quality in our team,” he noted.

Instead of feeling bad that Nigeria missed the AFCON 2025 trophy and only settled for the third place bronze, Adeboye said Super Eagles and Coach Eric Chelle deserve praises.

“We need to appreciate our boys because they have done excellently well. This was the first time that we saw Super Eagles composed themselves and played like a team. We have not seen this team in this form in the last decade. They played like a world-class team.”

The SSA to the President urged the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the National Sports Commission (NSC) to work towards renewing Eric Chelle’s contract when it expires next January.

“For a coach who has played 17 competitive matches without losing any in regulation time, it shows the pedigree of the Franco-Malian coach. We saw in this tournament how Super Eagles that was previously winning games by odd results graduated  to beating teams by four goals. Eagles scored 14 goal in seven matches and only conceded four times. This shows that Chelle is a good coach that must be retain to continue the building of Super Eagles to a proper team capable of taking on any team in the world,” concludes the SSA on Grassroots Sports to the president.