2018 World Cup: Our Qualification A Tortuous Journey – Pinnick

The President of the Nigeria Football Federation President, NFF, Amaju Pinnick, has described the qualification campaign of the Super Eagles ahead of 2018 World Cup as a “tortuous journey”.

Pinnick said this on Tuesday, at the World Cup Seminar with the theme, “Ensuring Nigeria’s Success In 2018 FIFA World Cup,” which was organised by the Sun Newspapers in conjunction with the Rivers state government, held in Port-Harcourt.

“People will not understand the importance of this qualification, last four years Netherland played in the semifinal but this year they didn’t qualify, Chile champion of tomy ball didn’t qualify, USA and Italy did not qualify, so we must put our hands together for the 32 teams that qualified for the World Cup,” the NFF boss said.

“It was a very tortuous journey, our qualification, we had lost out not qualifying for the AFCON twice, so we were condemning in making sure we qualify for the 2018 world cup, we did not just want to qualify but we wanted to qualify in style.

“And we did not just want to make a presence when we get to Russia but we wanted to a prominent presence getting into Russia, and the first thing we did was we needed to have a coach, our coaches are super, our coaches are international but we needed a coach that will look at everybody and say I do not have any consanguinity with Nigerians, I want the best, if the best 11 is from Delta, I want to take the best 11, if the best 11 is from Kano, I want to take the best 11, we did not want to play any politics, we did not want any gamble, we went abroad and we got a coach and the rest is history.

“If you look at the four teams that qualified in our group, our group in the histo-graphic literature of football, in the annals of football history is the toughest group in World Cup qualifiers anywhere in the world,

“Of the five countries that qualified Algeria, Nigeria and Cameroun were in the last World Cup, with one just needed to go, Zambia all these countries were AFCON winners, strong and proud footballing nations, it was tough.”

Coach Gernot Rohr’s men were also challenged to return to the days of the 1994 World Cup when they were tagged as one of the world’s best and also ranked as no four by FIFA.

Present at the occasion were the Governor of the State Nyesom Wike, Representative from the Minister of Sports, Mrs Esther Aluko, former Super Eagles Coach Adegboye Onigbinde, amongst others.