ABUJA: Former German international Bruno Labbadia has been named as Nigeria’s new coach, becoming the third appointment to the post this year.

The Nigeria Football Federation made the announcement on social media on Tuesday, saying his appointment was “with immediate effect” but without giving any details of the contract duration.

Labbadia takes charge 12 days before Nigeria kick off their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign with a Group ‘D’ tie home to neighbours Benin in Uyo. The team also play away in Rwanda three days later.

The 58-year-old, is a seasoned Bundesliga coach with spells at Bayer Leverkusen, Hamburg, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg and Hertha Berlin. This will be his first job outside Germany.

He replaces Finidi George, who was in charge for four matches earlier this year.

Labbadia, who won two caps for his country and played as a striker at Bayern Munich among other clubs, will spend the rest of the year focusing on qualifying the Super Eagles for the next Cup of Nations finals, which will be hosted in Morocco in late 2025.

Nigeria are top seeds in a group that also includes Libya, with the top two teams qualifying.

But from next March, the German will have a much tougher task as Nigeria resume World Cup qualifying.

They are winless after their opening four games in African qualifying Group ‘C’ and sit fifth out of six teams, although they still have another six matches to play in their bid to win the group and take a berth at the 2026 finals in North America.

It has been a surprisingly poor start, especially after the fine form Nigeria displayed in reaching the Cup of Nations final in the Ivory Coast at the start of the year.

Their Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro was not offered a renewal of his contract despite their best performance at the two-yearly African championship since winning the Cup of Nations in 2013, and left immediately after the tournament.

Nigeria have employed a long list of foreign coaches, including former German World Cup winner Berti Vogts, well-travelled Serb Bora Milutinovic and Brazilian Otto Gloria.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024