In an international news report, Nigeria’s loss to Guinea Bissau in the 2023 AFCON qualifiers match is making headlines. According to Vanguard News, the Super Eagles coach, Jose Peseiro, is blaming the referee, Kotey Alexander, for their 1-0 loss. Despite Nigeria wasting several chances, Peseiro is grading the Egyptian referee’s decisions as poor officiating.
The only goal of the match came from Mama Balde in the 29th minute, putting Guinea Bissau on top of group A and pushing the Eagles down to second place. Peseiro told Pulse sports, “The referee failed to give the Guinea-Bissau player Mama Balde a red card after going in hard on Kevin Akoguma in the second half of the game.” He also mentioned that the referee did not give a penalty to the Super Eagles striker after he was roughly handled in the penalty box.
Peseiro believes that the added time given by the referee did not justify the time wasted for the treatment of the Super Eagles defender and was expecting 10 minutes from the referee. Despite the poor officiating, Peseiro is not going negative and believes that Nigeria still has a chance to win. “It is one match, [in] one match, any team can lose. I believe if we play [again] like we played today [Friday], we [can] beat any team,” he added.
Nigeria will have a chance at payback when they travel to Guinea for the return leg on the 27th of March. The loss to Guinea Bissau is a setback for the Super Eagles, but they still have a chance to ma
ke it to the 2023 AFCON tournament.