For the country’s football fans, who had always craved for a top quality coach for the Eagles, one of Africa’s most successful sides, Peseiro emerged on the Nigerian scene as a virtually unknown man in football management.

“Jose who?,” stakeholders queried after his appointment May 15, 2022.

Even the country’s staunchest followers of global football hardly knew the Portuguese, who had taken over from the interim group of local coaches

A search on Google showed the 62-year-old’s last job was with the Venezuelan national team, with whom he parted ways in 2021, after he was owed over a year’s wages.

A further look at his credentials also revealed he had managed 18 clubs, mostly modest sides, and two countries (Saudi Arabia and Venezuela), with a one-year stint as assistant coach at Real Madrid (2003/04) in 29 years.

In terms of silverware, his biggest achievements were leading Portuguese side SP Sporting to the final of the UEFA Cup in the 2004/05 season, where they lost 3-1 to CSKA Moscow and winning the Egyptian Premier League with Al Ahly in 2015/2016.

But this wasn’t too major a concern. 

After all, one of the hallmarks of a good coach is one who is able to utilize average players and mould them into an impregnable side.

Clemens Westerhof came to Nigeria, met a very average team which he spiced with some players he picked from the local league and turned them into African champions as well as threat to World Cup champions within a space of four years.

The expectation therefore was that with the array of talented Nigerian players dotted across the globe having impactful domestic seasons, particularly in 2022/2023; securing the AFCON title would be the minimal expectation for Peseiro.

Beginning with the Italian Serie A, where Victor Osimhen is the leading scorer at the moment with 20 goals in 25 games. 

His closest competitors are Argentina’s Lautaro Martinez (15) and another Nigerian player, Ademola Lookman of Atalanta with 12 goals.

In the French Ligue 1, there’s Terem Moffi.   

Moffi, who plays as a forward for Ligue 1 club Lorient, has garnered 12 goals so far,making him the sixth top scorer in Ligue 1 ahead of World Cup winner and Paris Saint-Germain’s Lionel Messi.

In the English Premier League, we have a plethora of players from forward to midfield and defence. Alex Iwobi with Everton, Taiwo Awoniyi who is Nottingham Forest’s second highest goal scorer so far this season with five goals. 

They have both been more outstanding for club than country, perhaps because of the Nigerian setup and a coach who doesn’t know how best to utilize them.

Paul Onuachu, who recently transferred from Genk of Belgium where he was leading scorer to Southampton.

At Leicester, there’s the duo of Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfried Ndidi. 

The LaLiga employs Samuel Chukwueze, Ramon Azeez, Kelechi Nwakali, Sadiq Umar and Kenneth Omeruo among others.

The handful of matches the new coach handled, did not do much to enhance his reputation among bemused Nigerians.

Still, expectations were high that this Eagles squad, ranked 35th, would steamroll the visitors, who were comfortably beaten 2-0 by the Eagles at the 2021 AFCON in Cameroon last year.

However, Friday’s shock 1-0 defeat to minnows Guinea-Bissau, who are ranked 118th, in Abuja, was a pill far too bitter for many Nigerian fans to swallow.

The defeat meant the Eagles, with six points, lost the leadership of Group A to the Bissau Guineans, who are now top with seven points.

It always looked like a time bomb waiting to explode following Peseiro’s penchant for regular invitation of benchwarmers and inactive players in European clubs

His tactics and the team’s uncoordinated displays in their games, bar the mauling of Sao Tome and Principe, has also come under scathing criticisms.

Calls for Peseiro’s sack are justified after the team’s latest disastrous outing, which ended their two-game unbeaten run in the AFCON qualifiers and taking the coach’s defeats to five in seven games.

The constant struggle in every game, including perceived lower opposition like Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau, and the laboured performances, also vexed Nigerians.

Anything short of a win on Monday, and the knives will once more be unsheathed for the Portuguese manager.