Eagles must change mentality to beat Tunisia - Odini

Japan ’93 FIFA Under-17 World Cup winner, Festus Odini, in an exclusive interview with Complete Sports has backed the Super Eagles to beat the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia in their next friendly on Tuesday.

Odini insists the Gernot Rohr’s team must step up and play with a better mentality after a poor approach in their 1-0 defeat to the Desert Foxes of Algeria on Friday.

How will you access the Nigeria vs Algeria game?

I didn’t see the game but from what I heard, it is not a good result for a team that is preparing for the AFCON qualifiers in November. For
the players and the country as a whole, the result wasn’t encouraging.

Everything boils down to the coach because he will get sacked when things go wrong. The coach should try and have a really balanced team.

You can lose but the way you lose matters a lot. If you lose and your team did not play well, that means you are having two problems.

Gernot Rohr has been there since 2016, don’t you think he should have had a balanced team four years after?

He should have known his first team by now. He should not be overhauling his team every now and then. Now, it’s like he is just going back.

It appears that without Victor Osimhen, the Super Eagles can’t score goals. Are you impressed with Paul Onuachu?

I think Onuachu needs to do more. He is delivering at his club, Genk and then, he should also do the same thing for Nigeria. Onuachu has the quality to give Osimhen a very good competition, but I think he needs to step up his game

Ahead of the Super Eagles friendly against Tunisia on Tuesday, what advice do you have for the players?

They should try and redeem themselves with a very good performance against Tunisa on Tuesday, and they should also try and make Nigerians smile with victory because we don’t see it as a friendly. We cannot be playing and be losing like that.

Can the Super Eagles beat Tunisia?

Yes, we can, I believe we can win. The boys should go with the right approach and also play the game with the right mentality, and then they can win.