What you probably don't know about the New Super Eagles' Coach, Peseiro
Posted by Ahmed Iyanda | 3 years ago | 1,395 times
Jose Peseiro
After a few weeks of speculation, the Executive Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) officially announced Jose Peseiro as the new head coach of the Super Eagles.
The Committee during their meeting held via video conference, announced the permanent replacement for the sacked Gernot Rohr in a communique released on Wednesday 29th December, 2021.
The statement confirmed the appointment of Jose Peseiro as the new Super Eagles head coach, adding that the 61-year-old Portuguese gaffer won’t take over immediately from Austin Eguavoen, the team’s interim head coach, till after next year’s AFCON in Cameroon.
The announcement is coming at a time the Nigeria Super Eagles needed a pro-active coach that will take the country to a greater height and also to clear the “disaster” that Amaju Pinnick, the federation’s president, had declared Rohr was leading the team into.
The new Super Eagles’ boss is saddled with a well-publicised job of rejuvenating discipline and a sense of directness into the Nigerian side.
Born in 1960 in Coruche, Portugal, Peseiro began his football career. His playing days, however, didn’t see advancement beyond the second division of the Portuguese League. He had his first stint as a coach in 1992 when he took charge of Uniao Santarem in his homeland.
At the age of 34 in 1994, Peseiro hung his boots, while languishing in the fourth division with União de Santarém.
Upon retirement, the Portuguese thrust himself straight into the man-managing and tactics tinkering space of football management. For a handful of years, he managed teams in the lower rungs of Portuguese football, swinging between the third and fourth divisions.
When he was appointed manager of C.D Nacional in 1999, he helped improve the club’s football, and within three seasons, Peseiro managed them to the Portuguese first division.
In 2003, Peseiro was hired to be an Assistant Manager to fellow countryman Carlos Queiroz who was employed to lead the Galacticos charge at Real Madrid. The team under the Portuguese pair was successful at first and was primed to win the La Liga, having built a significant advantage over their rivals, but a late-season crumble saw them surrender the title to Valencia, then coached by a young Rafa Benitez. Los Blancos finished a distant fourth, barely qualified for the UEFA Champions League, and the duo was sacked.
His last national team job was with Venezuela after taking over on February 2020 and led them to the 2021 Copa America where the country crashed out in the group stage. The Portuguese managed to keep his job until August 2021, when he resigned as a result of non-payment of salaries for a year.
