CHAN: Super Eagles Lost Narrowly To Benin Republic, Amaju Pinnick Blames Officiating,Playing Turf and Players

Super Eagles of Nigeria made up of players playing in the Nigeria professional football league suffered a narrow defeat to next door neighbours Benin Republic.

A late penalty converted by Mama Seibou was enough to give the squirrels the victory after what should be tagged a 'school boy' mistake on the part of Afeez Aremu on the dot of time where he was dispossessed in the Nigerian half and had to commit a foul in the process of trying to win the ball back.

Meanwhile, President of Nigeria Football Federation Amaju pinnick has described the officiating during CHAN 2018 qualifier between Benin Republic and Nigeria as “very very poor”.

Pinnick watched from the stands of Stade de Mathieu Kerekou as Nigeria fell 1-0 to a late penalty.

Algerian Referee, Mustapha Ghorbal and his assistants were blamed for several questionable calls.

“I believe we’ll do our best in the second leg in Kano. I can say the officiating was poor and the turf also affected our game. But we’ll work hard to over those two challenges in the second leg.

“The officiating was very very poor and I have informed the authorities. I don’t want to make excuses but we’ll work hard to qualify,” Pinnick explained.

He also questioned the Ambition of the players.

"I was not really impressed with the players. They’re all highly rated players; these are some of the best players in our league, but I don’t know what happened, they didn’t live up to the expectation Today.”

Nigeria will entertain Benin Republic in Kano next weekend in the reverse tie for a place in Kenya 2018.

Benin Rep. Starting XI : Glodjinon, Nabil, Mama, Dine, Ibrahim, Seibou, Waris, Marcelin, Elegbede, Fassinou, Gomez.

Substitutes : Dandjinou, Gaston, Osseni, Dah, Adjana, Saliou

Super Eagles Starting XI : Ezenwa, Okoro, Akas, Okogbue, Eze, Aremu, Ifeanyi, Zenke, Ali, Olatunbosun, Eduwo

Substitutes : Ajiboye, Ariwachukwu, Alhassan, Odey, George, Mathias, Sani

Photo Credit: Oga Nla Media