BY KUNLE SOLAJA

Franco-German coach, Gernot Rohr was on Sunday night relieved of his duty as Super Eagles' manager. It came after weeks of waiting as most Nigerians believed that the sack was just an incident waiting to happen.

Sports Village Square highlights the take-aways of the 12-12 (12 December) event.

  • Third foreign coach sacked by Nigeria in 24 years

The sacking of Gernot Rohr marks the third time a foreign coach was sacked by Nigeria since the dismissal of Frenchman, Phillippe Trousier in 1997 after qualifying the Super Eagles for France '98.  The next foreign coach to be fired was Bonfrere Johannes who was dismissed as the Super Eagles lost 0-1 to Sierra Leone on the road to World Cup 2002. The other foreign coaches simply walked out of their duty posts. Among these were Lars Lagerback (Sweden), Berti Vogts (Germany), Thijs Libgrets (Netherlands), Bora Milutinovic (Serbia), Carlos Alberto Torres (Brazil), Clemens Westerhof (Netherlands) and Manfred Hoener (Germany.

  • Coach with longest Tenure

No coach had stayed on the saddle for a long time as did the soft speaking and soft acting Gernot Rohr whose single tenure goes down as the longest by any manager of the Nigerian team in 72 years. Employed on 5 August 2016, he spent an unbroken 1,955 days on the job.

This is five years, four months and seven days or 64 months and seven days. The closest to that was Clemens Westerhof who had 1,787 days - four years, 10 months and 22 days.

In terms of number of matches, Rohr had 54. The closest to that was by the late Amodu Shaibu whose four spells of 1994-97; 1999; 2001/02 and 2008-2010 as Super Eagles' manager cumulatively had 53 matches.

  • No back-to-back coach to Afcon in 21 years

The sacking of Rohr means his Africa Cup of Nations' dreams have been terminated.  Only three coaches have back-to-back taken the Nigerian team to the continental premier football competition.

They are Jelisvicic Tihomeir-Tiko (1976 and 1978), Otto Gloria (1980 and 1982) and Clemens Westerhof (1990, 1992 and 1994).

In essence, in 21 years, no coach will take Nigeria to the Africa Cup of Nations consecutively.

  • Eguavoen to have shortest preparation to Afcon

With 27 days to the kick-off of the delayed 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, Eguavoen who succeeds Rohr will have the shortest period preparing a Nigerian team to the continental football fiesta.

He is however not a stranger to the competition having featured in the 1988, 1992 and the on-field captain in 1994. He was the coach to the 2006 edition in Egypt.