Nigerian head coach Eric Chelle was impressed with the players’ performance against Tanzania on Tuesday, but believes they have to improve ahead of their coming games, SportPremi reports.
The Super Eagles underlined their status as one of the favourites to lift the trophy on the 18th of January, 2026 with an impressive 2-1 win over Tanzania in their opening group C clash on Tuesday.
The game which took place at the Fez Stadium saw the three-time winners of the African Cup of Nations exert their dominance in the clash, although it proved tricky at some point of the encounter.
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Goals in either half by Semi Ajayi and Ademola Lookman either side of an equalizer from Charles M’Mombwa, was enough to seal maximum points in their opening clash.
Ajayi and Lookman star in crucial win for Nigeria
Nigeria needed a fast start ahead of their second group match against Tunisia, which could prove decisive in determining the winners of the group.
They started brightly with Akor Adams getting two attempts on goal in the fist 10 minutes of the clash – the goalkeeper saving the first one, before he struck the crossbar with a header minutes later.
Victor Osimhen also wasted chances to get on the scoresheet, before luck smiled on the team in the 36th minute as they finally broke the deadlock.
Samuel Chukwueze played a short pass to Alex Iwobi from a corner and the playmaker delivered an inswinging cross to Semi Ajayi, who headed into the top corner.
Osimhen finally thought he had his goal after the restart, but he was denied by the offside flag and Tanzania made Nigeria rue their missed chances with the equalizer afterwards.
M’Mombwa snuck in behind the defenders and slotted in beyond Stanley Nwabali, who could not prevent the goal.
But there would be no shocks on the card as Lookman fired in a stunner two minutes later to put the Super Eagles back in the lead as they closed out the win.
Chelle leaves room for improvement after victory over Tanzania
Eric Chelle was impressed as he guided Nigeria to victory in his first African Cup of Nations match in charge of the country.
However, the tactician believes the players must do better ahead of their crucial fixture against Tunisia next Saturday.
“We have to analyse this win because we did a lot of food things in the first half, we created chances to score and in the second half we gave Tanzania the chance to come back into the game”, Chelle revealed in his post-game presser.
“We did some mistakes but we are happy for the win and the most important thing at the AFCON is to improve in every game so now after the analysis we will do in the morning we have to continue to improve because we will face Tunisia next who are a big team. We need to improve on a lot of things defensively, put in more movement when we have the ball and when we don’t, so I praise my players for the win but we have lots of work.”
Nigeria will return to the Fez Stadium on Saturday for the top of the table clash in group C against Tunisia.
