By Dipo Olowookere
A German tactician, Mr, has been appointed as the new coach of Nigeria’s men’s football team known as Super Eagles.
A statement from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Tuesday morning confirmed the appointment of Mr Labbadia as the 37th head coach of the Eagles.
In the statement, the General Secretary of the football federation, Mr Mohammed Sanusi, was quoted as saying the new coach is expected to resume his new post “with immediate effect.”
It was stated that the decision to allow the 58-year-old German to manage Nigeria’s senior men’s national team was taken by the federation’s Technical and Development Sub-Committee, with the approval of the executive committee.
“The NFF Executive Bruno Labbadia Committee has approved the recommendation of its Technical and Development Sub-Committee to appoint Mr Bruno Labbadia as the Head Coach of the Super Eagles,” Mr Sanusi said.
The new coach played football as a striker, winning the DFB-Pokal in 1989-90 with FC Kaiserslautern and the Bundesliga in 1993-94 with FC Bayern Munich.
He also played for the German national team, earning two caps with no goal to his name. However, in the under-21 category for Germany, he netted three times from six appearances.
Business Post reports that in his senior club career, spanning eight clubs, he scored 204 goals from 557 appearances.
In his managerial career, he last managed VfB Stuttgart in 2023 for a second time after he first coached the team between 2010 and 2013, finishing with a record of 50 wins, 24 draws, and 45 losses during the period.
After his return to the club in December 2022, Mr Labbadia was fired in April 2023 after the team dropped to the last place.