Emmanuel Amuneke named new coach of the Super Eagles

The Super Eagles have a new coach! With Emmanuel Amuneke on the sidelines, the Nigerian team hopes to get back on track in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.

It really was not a good Africa Cup for the Super Eagles. They started the tournament with high expectations. They had a team full of superstars but were eliminated in the round of 16 against the eventual finalists from Egypt.
After the late decision to sack German coach Gernot Rohr at the end of 2021, Augustine Eguavoen took over for the tournament! But after the bitter defeat, those in charge of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) around General Secretary Dr Mohammed Sanusi had no other choice: a new coach, Emmanuel Amuneke, was hired.

Big match against Ghana on the 24th of March

The preparation for the two decisive qualifiers for the World Cup in Qatar on 24 and 27 March against Ghana will thus be taken over by a national football hero. Amuneke knows how to lead Nigeria to success – at least that was the case as a player. Amuneke’s brace in the 1994 Africa Cup final, which gave the Super Eagles the decisive tournament win, is still remembered today.

As a player, Amuneke also made a name for himself in Europe. The striker particularly flourished at Sporting Lisbon. Later he moved to FC Barcelona for a very high transfer fee at the time! During his period at Barca, he played alongside fellow Nigerian Samuel Okunowo. They were both parts of a side with the former best players in the world Luis Figo and Rivaldo! Other teammates were Mauricio Pellegrino, Luis Enrique, Pep Guardiola and Frank De Boer – all of them are successful coaches nowadays. His coach was Louis Van Gaal with his assistant coach Jose Mourinho at the time. As a player, Amuneke did not succeed at Barcelona. But he will now bring the experience he gained there to the Super Eagles.

Amuneke’s big task to form a well-functioning team

As a coach, Amuneke has already done a lot for youth development in Nigeria. Many talents have already emerged from his Emmanuel Amuneke Football Academy. And for many years he was the coach of the Nigerian Sub17. Between 2018 and 2019, Amuneke was already the national coach of Tanzania.
Amuneke’s full attention is on the task of finally forming a functioning unit from the great players in his team. They still have a good chance of qualifying for the World Cup!

Max Stargard

By Max Stargard

Even as a child, I started typing the results of the Bundesliga with my friends at school. The stakes were modest back then: The lunch, a few marbles or maybe a milk slice. Then, at the age of 9, I played the penalty bet once - and immediately got 10 right. The previous week I had won 500 DM and in my childish imagination I was already imagining how many football pictures I could buy at the kiosk on the corner. Unfortunately, it was one of those match days when everything turned out as expected and I only won DM 8.10. Nevertheless, I followed the game with great interest. Nevertheless, the passion to correctly predict the outcome of sporting events haunted me for the rest of my life. I would have loved to own the sports almanac that Marty McFly bought in Back to the Future II. Much later, when I was already working as a journalist for newspapers and as a writer for television, I came across an international betting forum with over 100,000 members - and found out that a lot of people there were giving their tips on German football, but nobody seemed to have a real clue, so I wrote a few English-language preliminary reports with a few tips - and was right about everything. After that, an avalanche started. I got offers from bookmakers, sports papers and even betting syndicates to work for them - and I accepted a few of them too, experiencing the ups & downs of sports betting and travelling halfway around the world in the years that followed. There I met Chinese multimillionaires betting five to six figures, amateur players in Serbia or Turkey supporting their families with small stakes, South Africans gambling away half their fortune, Brazilians who could only leave their favelha and become rich by making the right tips. At one point my life was similar to Matthew McCaughaney's in the film Two For The Money - and far too much stress. I subsequently moved to another continent and ran an English-language football epaper about the Bundesliga from there. After the birth of my son, I devoted myself for many years only to artistic projects in the field of photography and literature. However, I am happy to share my knowledge and passion with the readers of bettingtipsafrica.