{"id":59694,"date":"2025-01-17T09:42:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T09:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=59694"},"modified":"2025-01-17T09:42:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T09:42:38","slug":"can-chelle-lead-eagles-to-chan-2024-glory-akuneto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/01\/17\/can-chelle-lead-eagles-to-chan-2024-glory-akuneto\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Chelle Lead Eagles to CHAN 2024 Glory? \u2013Akuneto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Oluwamayowa Fakande<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Former Nigeria international and Oldham United coach, Chukwuma Akuneto, has questioned whether Mali-born manager Eric Sekou Chelle can guide the Super Eagles to their first African Nations Championship (CHAN), title in August.<br \/>\nDespite finishing as runners-up in 2018 and securing bronze in 2014, Nigeria has yet to lift the CHAN trophy.<br \/>\nAfter missing the last two editions, the Super Eagles B team secured qualification by defeating Ghana\u2019s Black Galaxies 3-1 on aggregate.<br \/>\nThe 2024 tournament, hosted across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, will feature 19 teams competing for a $3.5 million prize.<br \/>\nNigeria has been drawn in Group D alongside defending champions Senegal, Congo, and Sudan\u2014the only four-team group in the competition.<br \/>\nWhile Nigerians celebrate the team\u2019s return, Akuneto remains cautious about Chelle\u2019s ability to deliver success.<br \/>\n\u201cOur local league has improved in organization, positively impacting the quality of the NPFL, so I expect a strong performance from our players at CHAN,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nOn whether Chelle can lead Nigeria to glory, Akuneto admitted uncertainty but acknowledged the coach\u2019s experience.<br \/>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, but he is currently coaching in Africa (MC Oran of Algeria), so he understands the football landscape.<br \/>\n&#8220;His coaching and playing career suggest he is highly experienced,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Oluwamayowa Fakande Former Nigeria international and Oldham United coach, Chukwuma Akuneto, has questioned whether Mali-born manager Eric Sekou Chelle can guide the Super Eagles to their first African Nations Championship (CHAN), title in August. Despite finishing as runners-up in 2018 and securing bronze in 2014, Nigeria has yet to lift the CHAN trophy. After [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":59488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[59,405],"class_list":["post-59694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured","tag-nff"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59695,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59694\/revisions\/59695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}