- Safiu Kehinde
Former Super Eagles Captain, Austin Jay-Jay Okocha, has revealed reason behind the Nigerian national team’s lack of consistency.
Okocha made this known in an interview on The Exchange Podcast hosted by former Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited’s spokesperson, Femi Soneye, on Sunday.
Speaking on the podcast show before the Super Eagles defeat to the Democratic Republic of Congo at the African qualifiers play-off final for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Okocha traced the team’s lack of consistency back to the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament.
He held that the complete overhaul of the previous squad and their replacement with new players marked the beginning of the Super Eagles abysmal outings.
While he was among the few senior players from the old squad retained in the 2002 squad, Okocha described the team as the weakest he had ever played with.
He cited the lack of succession from the old squad to the new players as main cause of the Super Eagles poor outing at the tournament which also rubbed off on subsequent outings.
“In my opinion, I think Nigerian football started declining after 2002 Nations Cup.
“The team was disbanded and then some of us were called back. I know some people might me happy with me, but the squad that we went to the World Cup with in 2002 was the weakest that I played with.
“The previous world cup, we made it out of our group. We topped the group, but we didn’t even come out of our group in 2002. So, that transition that used to happen did not really happen.
“Before then, we used to had players that have played in the national team for years and they retired and others took over from them.
“But that transition didn’t happen. They disbanded the team and almost 70 percent of the team left.” He said.
While maintaining that the team have had great players over years, the Nigerian football legend however held that the Super Eagles have lost their fear factor as they no longer win games with conviction.
“Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had great players over the years. We’ve had players that have tournaments also for Nigeria.
“But that consistency is lacking. We don’t win games with conviction anymore. We’ve lost that fear factor.” He added.