Éric Chelle, manager of Nigeria’s Super Eagles, began his Africa Cup of Nations managerial odyssey with the Eagles of Mali in 2024, losing to eventual champions Côte D’Ivoire in the quarter-finals.
The visceral physical reaction of the French-Malian to the harsh realities of that defeat – having water poured on his head, to revive him as he crouched down on the pitch – is one of the lasting images from that tournament.
“Everyone calls me ‘water man’, because of that match. Do you know the story behind that?” Chelle asked me last year during the African Nations Championship.
“Before the tournament, I had surgery in France for a cardiac problem. It was issues relating to that which led to them pouring water on me, to revive me.”
Now faced with the arduous task of guiding Nigeria to a fourth Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) title in Morocco, after the bitter disappointment of their failure to qualify for this summer’s World Cup finals – having also missed out on the 2022 World Cup – Chelle says that he has adopted a completely different attitude for his second Afcon, as Nigeria prepare to take on Mozambique in Monday’s round-of-16 game in Fez.
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“There is a lot of pressure for sure,” he told The Observer after the 3-1 win over Uganda in their final group match. “I’m calm, I’m cool, the players are good. I can say that I am more calm than I was during the last Afcon.
“I have to be very focused about the attitude of the players and their behaviour. This is the best time for that. We need to have everybody at 100%.
“Every day I work, I have my vision, sometimes it’s very good, sometimes it’s bad. Now I have a headache, because everybody can play [in the team]. I’m very happy to stay in Fez because the town is calm, we are focused, we have our pitch to train, even though it is cold.”
Since Chelle took over the Super Eagles in January last year, this Afcon has been the first time that he has had the players for two successive weeks, enabling him to try out tactical ideas and playing formations, which he did against Uganda, knowing that he had already qualified for the tournament’s next round, following victories over Tanzania and Tunisia.
“When you play during the Fifa windows [as Chelle did, during his part-management of Nigeria’s World Cup campaign] you have very little time, which is why I used the game [against Uganda] to try other systems. Maybe there will be a big surprise for the round of 16.”
Chelle is extremely keen to leave Morocco with a more positive image for himself and a better outcome for Nigeria – which, for the continent’s most populous nation of more than 237 million people, is a fourth Afcon title, after losing in the 2023 final to Côte D’Ivoire in Abidjan.
Few can forget his moment of pure rage on the touchline at the Moulay El Hassan Stadium in Rabat, during Nigeria’s final game of the 2026 World Cup Africa zone play-offs against DR Congo in November, which they lost 4-3 on penalties.
While the penalty shootout was going on, after a 1-1 draw at the end of extra time, Sébastian Desabre, the DR Congo coach, firmly gripped an onrushing Chelle, to restrain him from confronting a member of the DR Congo staff, whom Chelle said was engaging in “voodoo” to prevent Nigeria from winning the game.
At the post-match press conference, Chelle asked why the media had not brought up the incident, as he gave his account of the drama in French: “DR Congo guys were doing maraboutage [technically a Muslim holy man, marabout has connotations of an African witch doctor],” which he went on to repeat to the media, in English, in the mixed zone: “During all of the penalties, the players of DR Congo were doing some voodoo.”
Officials of the DR Congo team flatly denied Chelle’s allegations.
In a telephone conversation days after the game, a calmer Chelle was apologetic for his rash actions: “I should not have behaved in the way I did. I should have been calmer.”
But, not surprisingly, Chelle’s apology came with a caveat. “People saw the video of me going to the DR Congo bench and what I did. But did they care to see what some of the DR Congo team members were doing, that led to my action? There are always two sides to a story,” he said.
Hopefully, for Nigeria, still licking the raw wounds of World Cup failure, the current chapter of Chelle’s Moroccan adventure will have the desired ending – the Afcon trophy, which the Super Eagles have not won in 13 years. But first, victory over Mozambique on Monday.
Photograph by Abdel Majid Bziouat/AFP via Getty Images