Sports
Eguavoen Promises Victory as Nigeria Hosts Ghana for World Cup Slot
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Technical Director of the Nigerian senior team – the Super Eagles, Mr Augustine Eguavoen, has said he will deliver Nigeria the world cup qualification ticket. The global tournament is scheduled to hold in Qatar later in the year.
The first leg of the Ghana- Nigeria tie ended in an uneventful goalless draw last Friday and on Tuesday (today) by 6 pm, the return leg will take place in Abuja.
Speaking at a pre-match conference in Abuja today, Mr Eguavoen disclosed that he understood the level of expectation ahead of the crunch tie and assured Nigerians of his squad picking the golden ticket.
“Expectations are high, Nigerians, football lovers and Super Eagles supporters have been praying and cheering for the team, they should continue in that manner,” he said.
“We can promise them at the end of the day we will make everyone happy, keep the support high, fill up the stadium and support Nigeria,” the former Nigerian international, who played in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, said.
Asked if he was under pressure to deliver, he noted, “I am not under any pressure, I am representing all Nigerian coaches both old and young. We want to collectively be in Qatar that is the message, once we cross the line everybody will be jubilating.”
Meanwhile, the coach of the Black Stars of Ghana, Mr Otto Addo, revealed his side needed to improve on their last performance to stand a chance of qualification.
The Ghanaian contingent had arrived Monday afternoon aboard a chartered aircraft at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport with 25 players, technical crew members, and officials of the Ghana Football Association.
“We have to improve and limit the Nigerian chances and we should try to score. We had some chances and if we improve on that we can start scoring,” coach Addo said.
He also noted that he also felt no pressure like his counterpart but saw it as a privilege
“Pressure for me is a privilege as the coach of the Ghana National team, 20 million Ghanaians will like to be here so I consider it a privilege.
“This is no pressure but surely we want to qualify, so, I told the guys to go out there and have fun. If we make mistakes you can take it on me, we will try to play football surely and we try to score and try to win,” he said.
The M.K.O Abiola Stadium in Abuja is the venue for the decider between both sides at 6 p.m. local time.
To boost support for the national team, the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) purchased 20,000 tickets for fans.
A victory for Nigeria would mean the country will clinch its seventh World Cup finals ticket. The Super Eagles were present in the USA in 1994, France in 1998, Korea/Japan in 2002, South Africa in 2010, Brazil in 2014, and Russia in 2018. The country didn’t qualify for the tourney held in Germany in 2006 after losing the spot to Angola.
By Dipo Olowookere
A fully synthetic multilingual Artificial Intelligence (AI) presenter known as AILA has been unveiled by Flashscore, one of the world’s largest digital sports data and news platforms.
Flashscore, which boasts more than 155 million monthly users, said the AI presenter was developed in collaboration with a creative high-value AI production studio, Fameplay.
AILA turns Flashscore’s sports data-driven features and narratives into localised presenter-led video, a statement from the company made available to Business Post said.
It anchored Route 48, Flashscore’s player-by-player data profile series, in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, and fronted an app-download campaign across Latin America, Spain and France, speaking each market’s language natively.
On the strength of that run, Flashscore is now ready to extend AILA across product and editorial announcements, original shows and partnerships.
Flashscore noted that AILA does not replace human editorial teams or studios, but rather complements them effectively and adds an always-available element.
“AILA was created by deliberately separating two distinct elements. The performance itself, the movement, facial expressions, and on-screen presence, was licensed from a real actress. The face, however, was built entirely from scratch: fully synthetic and fully owned,” the Chief AI Producer and co-founder of Fameplay, Lukáš Záhoř, stated.
“AILA can speak in dozens of languages, across any format, at any time, without being constrained by the availability or limitations of a human performer.
“Most synthetic presenters, by contrast, borrow a real person’s face and simply hope no one asks who actually owns it. For Flashscore, we created an asset that will only become more valuable over time, not a deepfake that lasts only until the first lawsuit,” Záhoř added.
Also commenting, the Chief Digital Content Officer at Livesport, Alan Záruba, said, “Our newsroom reaches millions of people, and we built our own studios to enhance our content the way we want it.
“AILA is an extension of that, not a departure from it. We want to stay at the forefront of the current digital development and AI-powered stream. When we briefed Fameplay on how to handle the concept of an AI digital avatar which can radically change the way we would scale our content, we wrote a single line to define future AILA: she’s built from numbers, but she speaks in stories.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s Super Falcons have failed to qualify for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup after suffering a 2-1 defeat to South Africa in their play-off encounter on Thursday night.
The Nigerian team, reeling from a 1-0 loss to Cameroon in the quarter-finals of the CAF Women’s African Cup of Nations (WAFCON) on Sunday, showed no signs of putting their misery to bed as they went two goals down to the Bayana Bayana team. It took a late penalty scored by Christy Uchebe to halve the deficit after the South Africans went down to 10 players.
The Super Falcons needed a victory against their opponents to progress to the next stage of the qualification process and secure one of the two available tickets to the intercontinental play-offs. The defeat ended their hopes of making it to the 2027 tournament, which will be hosted by Brazil.
The result brings an end to Nigeria’s remarkable record of appearing at every edition of the Women’s World Cup since the tournament was first held in 1991.
The play-offs were introduced to determine the final African representatives after four teams were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.
Two qualification tickets were available, with Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire battling for the opportunity to advance.
Ghana secured one of the available tickets after defeating Côte d’Ivoire 2-1, while South Africa claimed the other following their victory over the Super Falcons.
The Super Falcons had featured in all previous editions of the tournament, making their absence from the 2027 World Cup a significant moment in the history of Nigerian women’s football.
It also raises fresh questions about the direction of Nigerian national football after the Super Eagles also failed to qualify for the recently concluded FIFA World Cup held in the USA, Canada, and Mexico.
European football returns with a bang as the new season kicks off. The dust has barely settled on the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but European football wastes no time getting back to business. Over the next two weeks, the continent’s prominent competitions will launch in quick succession, giving fans a dense run of fixtures across the UEFA Super Cup, the FA Community Shield, La Liga, the Premier League and Serie A.
Paris Saint-Germain, fresh off back-to-back Champions League triumphs, faces Aston Villa in the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday 12 August at 8pm which will be airing on Supersport across DStv & GOtv, with the French side chasing a second successive Super Cup crown against an Aston Villa team that has become an increasingly serious force in European competition.
England’s traditional curtain-raiser follows four days later. The FA Community Shield, staged in Cardiff on Sunday 16 August at 3pm, pits Premier League champions Arsenal against FA Cup holders Manchester City, the latter beginning life under new manager Enzo Maresca, while Arsenal look to reinforce their status as the team to beat.
Spain gets moving over the same weekend, with La Liga’s opening round running from Saturday 15 to Monday 17 August. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have all been given extended rest following Spain’s World Cup win, leaving the door open for the chasing pack to set an early pace before Matchday 2 arrives from 20 to 24 August.
The Premier League then starts the following weekend, running from Friday 21 to Monday 24 August. Champions Arsenal open their title defence at home to promoted Coventry, before a full round of fixtures featuring Manchester United, Tottenham, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, among others, round out the opening weekend. Serie A joins the calendar on the same weekend, from 22 to 24 August, with holders Inter Milan starting their title defence against Monza and Napoli, Juventus, Milan and Roma all in early action.
With five major competitions launching inside a fortnight, the new European season promises an unrelenting start. All the action will be available live on SuperSport, across DStv and GOtv.
