Super Eagles head coach Augustine Eguavoen has alleged people are beginning to give the super eagles the respect they deserve after their group D performance in the African cup of nation.
Eguavoen told newsmen during his post-match conference that a lot of people felt that Nigeria was not good enough to win the tournament because of the team’s performance in the last few months.
Nigeria’s Super Eagles on Wednesday in Garoua advanced in style to the knockout phase of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON, in Cameroon.
“But again it is the same set of players who performed brilliantly well prior to the AFCON, the last one in Egypt and also a year or couple later.
“All of a sudden, things didn’t go well as they were supposed to for some reason and that’s why people were trying to write Nigeria off.
“For the first game, nobody gave us a chance but we did the job collectively,” said the coach.
He said he told the players to express themselves and be committed, “you don’t have any other country to play for, it’s only Nigeria and you know how passionate our people are when it comes to football.
“Now, people are thinking and starting to respect Nigeria.”
He, however, said the team would not allow the praises get to their head, adding that they would continue to respect their opponents in the tournament.
“We will always respect our opponents, we will play them with full strength and we will play them the way we play with anybody.
“For instance, if you see today’s game and like I said before, Guinea-Bissau is a very strong team. They were no pushovers at all,” said Eguavoen.