Eric Chelle has expressed delight that the Super Eagles remain in contention for a place at the 2026 FIFA World Cup following their hard-earned 2-1 victory over Lesotho in Friday’s Group C encounter.
Goals from captain William Troost-Ekong and debutant Akor Adams sealed the win for Nigeria, their third in the qualifying campaign, keeping their hopes alive.
With the result, the Super Eagles have now amassed 14 points, sitting third on the log, three points adrift of group leaders Benin Republic, who edged Rwanda 1-0 in Kigali.
South Africa’s Bafana Bafana occupy second place with 15 points after being held to a goalless draw by Zimbabwe.
Speaking after the match, Chelle said, “Today we are happy because we won the three points, we are still alive. I’m happy for my players, I want to congratulate them, for us we’ve been feeling the pressure since March and when my players come to camp they feel the pressure because for Nigeria we need to go to the World Cup, so we have lots of pressure, so maybe other teams will have some pressure too.”
The Super Eagles coach also urged fans in Uyo to rally behind the team ahead of their crucial home clash against Benin Republic on Tuesday.
“We need to have our fans behind us to put pressure on Benin, this is the World Cup qualifiers, so and this game start when they put their feet in our country, we need to do the job on the pitch.”
Sharing his thoughts on the encounter, Troost-Ekong admitted Lesotho gave Nigeria a tough challenge.
“Lesotho played a great game, it wasn’t easy to come here, we knew that from the start and I can understand the disappointment and frustration because they put up a very good fight,” the defender said.
“This kind of games are never easy, the coach talked about the pressure which has been on us since March and maybe since the start of the qualifiers. We just want to focus on ourselves we are a team of guys that have winning mentality, they want to be winners.
“We want to be at the World Cup we’ve said that now for the last nine months and we have the opportunity now with the game in Uyo against Benin who we know we have to score certain amount of goals, it was always the case we need to win the game and we have to win it convincingly.
“It’s going to be a big test again but now I think the team is really ready, we’ve been working on the pressure for such a long time and we know this is the final and we worked really hard to get there and like the coach said I’m proud of the team.”
