Guinea-Bissau coach downplays pitch concerns ahead Eagles clash - Punch Newspapers
Guinea-Bissau coach Emiliano Té has played down concerns over the condition of the pitch at the 24 de Setembro Stadium ahead of his side’s 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying clash against Nigeria on Tuesday, PUNCH Sports Extra reports. The two countries will meet in their second Group L fixture at the 20,000-capacity stadium, with both sides looking to maintain their winning starts to the qualifiers. Guinea-Bissau opened their campaign with an impressive 2-0 away victory over Tanzania, while Nigeria also secured a 2-1 win over Madagascar in Uyo. The condition of the pitch is linked to the timing of the fixture, with Guinea-Bissau currently in the heart of its rainy season. Persistent downpours can leave the playing surface waterlogged and saturated, making it softer and uneven, affecting ball movement and causing the turf to deteriorate quickly under the pressure of repeated use. The Super Eagles are also aware of the potentially difficult playing conditions, although coach Eric Chelle refused to dwell on the state of the pitch ahead of the encounter.See more Punch stories on Google.Add Punch on Google “I don’t want to say whether the pitch is good or the pitch is bad. We just need to stay focused on our game. We have to manage and we will see how it is during the training session too before the game,” Chelle said. We wore Falcons’ kits at 2008 Olympics — Osaze Okoye names Brazil great Dida as idol Eagles battle Wild Dogs for Group L supremacy Té, who took over from Luis Boa Morte in 2025 after the former Portugal striker was sacked following a run of eight successive defeats, acknowledged that the playing surface is not among the best but said the conditions were beyond the hosts’ control. “We are playing in Africa and we know that our pitch is not one of the best, but it is what it is. It is what we have and we cannot do anything about it,” he said at the pre-match interview. “We also don’t like to play on it the way it is now, but we can’t control that because it is raining and they try their best to make it good,” Té said. Tuesday’s meeting will be the fifth between the two nations, with Nigeria holding the recent advantage after winning their last two encounters. Guinea-Bissau, however, famously stunned the Super Eagles 1-0 in Abuja during the first leg of the 2023 AFCON qualifiers, with Mama Baldé scoring the only goal. Nigeria responded in the return fixture in Bissau, where Moses Simon converted a 30th-minute penalty to secure a 1-0 victory. Abiodun Adewale Abiodun, who reports Sports for PUNCH, covers different tiers of the Nigerian football league, the national teams, as well as cricket, in the last six years
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