Inside the Nigeria AFCON pressure cooker: ‘Here, if you don’t win, it’s a loss’

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In the Nigeria team hotel in Abidjan on Tuesday morning, the country’s footballers were divided into two groups. 

The second group was the bigger and more accessible, comprising the bulk of the 26-man squad spread between neighbouring function rooms decorated in wood panels.

The first group was made up of a single, central figure: Victor Osimhen. He was operating in a space of the Pullman Hotel, which has been used for team meetings and, to meet him, you had to get past a set of gold-plated doors, guarded by two strong men.

Reaching that stage, apparently, took weeks of convincing. Emmanuel Adebayor, the former Arsenal and Manchester City striker who now works as a broadcaster, was first up to interview the new king of African football. 

In December, Osimhen was voted as the best player on the continent. Last season, he scored the goals that inspired Napoli to their first Serie A title since Diego Maradona did the same thing for the club in 1990.

As a child, Osimhen had been a street seller, hawking bottles of water to motorists waiting in the Lagos traffic. On Saturday, as a 25-year-old, he scored his first goal in the Africa Cup of Nations, rescuing his nation from a defeat in their opening group game against Equatorial Guinea.

“We look at him as an inspiration,” Alex Iwobi tells The Athletic, amid the bedlam of a media scrum, where it is difficult to distinguish between fans and journalists because so many people holding recording devices and cameras are also wearing Nigeria replica shirts.

Iwobi, whose midfield role means he has the responsibility to service Osimhen, suggests it is his team-mate’s work rate that underpins his success.

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“Victor is such a passionate player,” continues Iwobi, who left Everton for Fulham last summer. “He presses so well — and when he does that, it gives the team the motivation to get up the pitch. And he’s never satisfied. It’s not just the goals he scores; it’s the hunger he’s got to continue doing so.”

There is an undeniable, incredible energy in the room but the manic level of interest is proof of the pressure that Nigeria are under at this tournament. 

This, after all, is Africa’s biggest country by population and its largest economy. It is also football-obsessed, but its record in major competitions remains distinctly underwhelming. 

The Nigerian players are reluctant to refer to “pressure” in conversations with reporters from the country because they have to show they are in control and undaunted by what is ahead of them: the hosts Ivory Coast, in Ebimpe, tomorrow (Thursday).

Nigeria can probably afford another draw, but would that be considered a good result? The players tend to think so, but admitting that publicly would probably not be a good idea. 

They are a little more candid about the challenges of playing for Nigeria when enthusiastic crewmen stop rolling their cameras right in front of their faces.

“People here are a lot more demanding,” Iwobi concedes, as he steps to one side. “They see the draw as a loss, which I can understand. But at the same time, I hope they can be reasonable with us. We all gave 100 per cent in our first game and had a lot of chances. But we just didn’t convert. That’s just how it is in Nigeria: if you don’t win, it’s a loss.”

Being here meant Iwobi missed out on the first leg of Fulham’s Carabao Cup semi-final at Liverpool — he says the signal on his phone in Ivory Coast has been temperamental so he only saw the highlights — and if Nigeria progress out of the group stages, he won’t be there for the second leg either. 

Not that club commitments are clouding his mind right now.

“Of course, I think we’ll do it,” he says, referring to Nigeria. “We’re a better team than people think.”

Another former Everton player has his back pressed against a wall at the Pullman. 

Ademola Lookman now plays in Serie A with Osimhen, having moved to Atalanta in 2022. 

“We really need him,” Lookman says, though he stresses this isn’t desperation. “His hunger and desire to fight and win is huge. He’s a big, big player for us.”

Lookman says it is a “blessing” to play for his country and it is part of his job to deal with the responsibilities that come with that. He insists Nigeria can win AFCON for a fourth time.

“Our slogan is: ‘Let’s do it again’,” he says. “Within our camp, we all know what that means: to go the distance in this tournament. We have the quality, we have the players and we have the intelligence.”

There is an argument, however, that Nigeria is one of the great underachieving nations in football. 

If you scrape beyond the obvious criticisms of this particular team — specifically, an over-particular coach who has picked a lopsided squad in terms of skill sets — there is the issue of the country’s federation, which has not spent money particularly well and stands accused of wasting the chance to create the sort of structures that exist in places such as Morocco and Senegal.

Both have enjoyed significant international success in recent years: in 2022, Morocco became the first African nation to reach a World Cup semi-final while Senegal are reigning AFCON champions, as are their teams at under-17 and under-20 levels.

As for Nigeria? They have reached the last 16 of the World Cup in 1994, 1998 and 2014 but no further. There have been three AFCON titles, the last of which came in 2013, and that might have been four had the team not withdrawn from the 1996 edition in South Africa due to political tensions with the hosts. That golden generation of Nigeria players became Olympic champions later that year.

Shodunnke Shogo, who was networking at the Pullman, runs an independent football development project in Nigeria. 

He compares the country to Brazil, in which he suggests there are all sorts of cultural and social parallels — only for the comparisons to finish when it comes to success on a football pitch.

Nigeria’s population, sixth globally, is more than six million more than Brazil’s. “The federation has to do more,” he suggests, proposing a decentralised association system that allows regions more freedom to make decisions and work together.

Shogo says there was a missed opportunity in 2000 when Nigeria and Ghana co-hosted this tournament. Many of the stadiums built or refurbished have since fallen into disrepair, along with the equipment. “That is because the responsibility of this falls into the hands of the government,” he adds.

This includes the National Stadium in Lagos, which isn’t always used to host matches because of the state it is in. 

Since Nigeria’s 1-1 draw with Equatorial Guinea on Sunday, The Athletic has learned that government officials entered the Nigerian dressing room at full time, letting the players know what they thought about their performance.

The same thing happened after South Africa’s 2-0 defeat to Mali last night. And while this sort of intervention is not unusual in African football, it serves as a reminder of the overlap that exists between sport and politics.

Nigeria has not, unlike other higher-achieving countries, sourced a technical director capable of bridging the gap between these worlds. 

The lack of process was highlighted when the Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro was essentially re-hired after his contract was allowed to run out, before being brought back, albeit on a lower deal than he was on before.

According to Nigeria watchers, it might even be a good thing if they failed badly in Ivory Coast because it may allow them to press the reset button. Yet it is suspected they’ll just replace the coach and hope that all of the country’s problems go away.

There must be some money behind the federation; The Pullman is one of the best hotels in Abidjan, with room rates ranging from £350 ($442) to £950 a night. It is far more modern and relaxing than the Tiama, where the Egyptians are staying. 

The resplendent furnishings and views over the lagoon, however, might disguise what is really going on with Nigeria’s campaign.

(Top photo: Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images)