{"id":75348,"date":"2025-09-10T22:14:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T22:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=75348"},"modified":"2025-09-10T22:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T22:14:05","slug":"nff-slams-dessers-troost-ekong-after-south-africa-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/09\/10\/nff-slams-dessers-troost-ekong-after-south-africa-draw\/","title":{"rendered":"NFF Slams Dessers, Troost-Ekong After South Africa Draw"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/p>\n<p>The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has openly criticized striker Cyriel Dessers and captain William Troost-Ekong following the Super Eagles\u2019 1-1 draw with South Africa on Tuesday, a result that further jeopardizes Nigeria\u2019s 2026 World Cup qualification hopes.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, NFF spokesperson Dr. Ademola Olajire described Dessers\u2019 display as \u201cunimpressive\u201d and faulted Troost-Ekong for the 25th-minute own goal that handed South Africa the lead.<\/p>\n<p>Defender Calvin Bassey\u2019s equalizer was praised, but the NFF lamented the team\u2019s lack of cutting edge, particularly in the second half.<\/p>\n<p>The result leaves Nigeria on 11 points from eight matches in Group C, six points behind leaders South Africa on 17.<\/p>\n<p>The Eagles must now win their final two games and rely on favourable results elsewhere to keep their World Cup hopes alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has openly criticized striker Cyriel Dessers and captain William Troost-Ekong following the Super Eagles\u2019 1-1 draw with South Africa on Tuesday, a result that further jeopardizes Nigeria\u2019s 2026 World Cup qualification hopes. In a statement, NFF spokesperson Dr. Ademola Olajire described Dessers\u2019 display as \u201cunimpressive\u201d and faulted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":75349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75348","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=75348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75350,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75348\/revisions\/75350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}