CHAN 2024: “Nigeria captain Junior Nduka wants to emulate Super Falcons success story”

Nigeria football has been on a respectable pedestal in the past few months with the female national team winning gold at the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations after coming from two goals down to beat the hosts Morocco 3-2 in the finals.

The U-20 male team, the Flying Eagles placed second at the 2025 WAFU-20 tournament in Ghana where they lost 1-0 to Ivory Coast at the Legon Sports Stadium.

The country’s female basketball team, D’Tigress also won a fifth consecutive title at the 2025 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket in Abidjan , Côte d’Ivoire on Sunday, capping a fine moment for the Green and White nation.

There is another fine opportunity for the home based Super Eagles to lift the flag of the nation aloft when they play at the 2024 Championship for African Nations. They will open their campaign on Tuesday against Senegal and captain of the side, Junior Nduka has declared that the team wants to make history by winning the title at the tournament.

“To our fellow Nigerians, I know the expectations are high because we have been doing well in sports and we will try our best not to let them down,” Nduka said.

“Our female team has just won the WAFCON and our women’s team just won the basketball title. It’s a good record for the country and we hope to consolidate on that.”

The Home Eagles are making a return to competition after failing to qualify for the previous two editions.

The West Africans were runners up on their last appearance at the 2018 edition hosted by Morocco. They also came third at the 2014 edition in South Africa. This will be the first CHAN meeting between Nigeria, and Senegal with the tournament co-hosted by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.