The 47-year-old’s most recent international job was in charge of Mali for two years and he took them to the quarter-finals of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, where they lost on penalties to hosts Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
The former centre back was born in Abidjan but won five caps for Mali. He spent his club career in France, most notably with Lens.<\/p>\n
Nigeria resume their World Cup qualifying campaign in March when they travel to face Rwanda before hosting Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
The Super Eagles have taken only three points from their opening four matches in Group C and trail Rwanda, South Africa and Benin, who each have seven points.<\/p>\n
The top side in each of the nine groups advance automatically to the 2026 finals in North America, while the four best runners-up enter continental play-offs with the potential for one extra place.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12143,"template":"default||default||default||default||default||default||default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-12142","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.||Nigeria have named Eric Chelle as their new Head Coach and tasked him with reviving the West African nation\u2019s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17899,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12142\/revisions\/17899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}