‘He did it like that with water or I don’t know what,’ said Eric Chelle as he waved his hand in the air
The coach of the football team was very angry after the defeat (4-3, after a 1-1 draw in 120 minutes) of the ‘Super Eagles’ on Sunday against the and accused a member of the Congolese team of practicing “voodoo” to guarantee a place in the intercontinental playoff for the . “During the penalties, the guy from Congo did voodoo, all the time, all the time, all the time, that’s why I was mad at him,” Eric Chelle explained to the press at the end of the match won by the Congolese on penalties. “He did it like that with water or I don’t know what,” said the trainer while waving his hand in the air. After the fourth Congolese goal in the penalty shootout, the winning one, Chelle went to the opponent’s bench, visibly furious at a member of the Congolese technical committee, according to images broadcast on television.
The defeat ended the chances of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, of participating in next year’s World Cup in North America. The Super Eagles, already absent in the previous edition in Qatar, are out of two consecutive World Cups for the first time since Nigeria debuted in a World Cup in 1994. The Democratic Republic of Congo, which has not participated in a World Cup since 1974, must, in turn, compete in an international play-off to guarantee its place.
The repechage will be played in March in Mexico, one of the World Cup’s host countries along with the United States and Canada. Eric Chelle, who was previously coach of the Mali national team (2022-2024), which he led to the quarterfinals of CAN 2023, became coach of the Nigerian team at the beginning of the year, with the aim of taking the team to the World Cup.
*With information from AFP
