The National Sports Commission has announced Bright Osehai Ozebagbe and Deniran Ortega as assistant coaches in Eric Chelle’s Olympic Eagles setup.
The appointments represent an early structural move in Nigeria’s attempt to rebuild an Olympic football programme that has missed the last two editions of the Games.
Ozebagbe and Ortega will work within the U23 setup under Chelle as attention begins to turn toward the Los Angeles 2028 cycle.
Ozebagbe brings domestic coaching experience into the structure and has worked within Nigerian football development environments.
Ortega arrives with a different pathway, including UEFA coaching credentials and experience around Nigeria’s youth-national-team system.
That combination gives Chelle two Nigerian assistants with contrasting backgrounds as he begins shaping the technical structure around the Olympic Eagles.
The bigger pressure
However, the bigger pressure goes beyond staff appointments.
Nigeria last appeared in the men’s Olympic football tournament at Rio 2016, where the team won bronze.
Since then, the Olympic Eagles have failed to qualify for Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.
For a country whose Olympic football history includes gold at Atlanta 1996, silver at Beijing 2008 and bronze at Rio 2016, that absence has created a clear expectation around the next cycle.
Chelle’s task is therefore not simply to assemble another U23 side.
He has to help restore a pathway capable of returning Nigeria to the Olympic tournament after two consecutive qualification failures.
The appointments of Ozebagbe and Ortega are the first visible pieces of that rebuild.
What follows will matter more: squad construction, preparation, qualifying performance and whether the Olympic Eagles can turn another reset into an actual return to the Games.
Nigeria’s Olympic football problem has lasted two cycles.
Chelle’s new staff now begin work under the pressure of making sure it does not become three.
Cranse Sports
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