Eagles’ job: Le Guen, Saintfiet, Yusuf face final hurdle today

THE trio of Frenchman, Paul Le Guen, Salisu Yusuf and Belgian Tom Saintfiet, will today know their fate as they face the final hur­dle for the race to coach the Super Eagles.

The three gaffers shortlisted earlier in the month, will undergo the final interview to be conducted by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) technical committee today in Abuja.

It would be recalled that the tech­nical and development committee had evaluated nearly two dozens of applications before prunning it down to the trio of Le Guen, Yusuf and Saintfiet.

According to the Chairman of the technical committee, Chris Green, arrangements have been concluded for the interview exercise at the NFF secretariate in Abuja.

“We have concluded arrange­ments for the interview process to take place at the NFF secretariat on Monday (today) and thereafter, we will forward the name of the successful candidate to the NFF board, who will deliberate on it and thereafter make their decision public.”

Belgian Saintfiet, 43, coached the National Teams of Namibia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Yemen, Ma­lawi and Togo, and also worked with the Qatar U-17 side, Young Africans FC of Tanzania and Free State Stars FC in South Africa.

Yusuf, 54, was capped by Ni­geria at U20 level, won FA Cup titles with El-Kanemi Warriors of Maiduguri as a player and coached top clubs Kano Pillars, El-Kanemi Warriors and Enyimba FC. He as­sisted Super Eagles’ chiefs Sam­son Siasia and Stephen Keshi (of blessed memory), and was care­taker coach for two friendlies that the Eagles won against Mali and Luxembourg in Europe at the end of May.

Le Guen, 52, played for Brest, Nantes and Paris Saint Germain and won 17 caps for France, before coaching Rennes, Lyon, PSG (in France) and Glasgow Rangers (in Scotland). He qualified the Indom­itable Lions of Cameroon for the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals and also coached Oman.