Super Eagles and Everton midfielder Alex Iwobi has attributed the senior national team poor performances at home to unavailability of good football pitch in Nigeria following the 1-0 defeat to the Wild Dogs of Guinea-Bissau in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Nigeria have struggled to record impressive results at home across all competitions in recent years including a shocking 1-0 loss to Central African Republic and a draw against Cape Verde during the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

The shocking defeat to 118th-ranked Guinea-Bissau being the latest in Super Eagles struggles at their own backyard. The former Arsenal player attributed the abysmal performance to lack of good pitches for the national team’s home matches.

“We don’t know if we are going to have a nice pitch when we play in Nigeria… If we have good pitches in Nigeria, it will be difficult to beat us,” Iwobi said during a recent podcast.

Talking about head coach Jose Peseiro’s first match in charge of Super Eagles, he said, “obviously we got a new coach  and we played Sierra Leone but we just managed to beat them 2-1, a difficult game,” referring to the poor condition of the MKO National Stadium, Abuja for the encounter.

“Then we played Sao Tome and beat them 10-nil on a great pitch,” a tie that was played at the Adrar Stadium in Agadir, Morocco.

The former England youth international said because most of the players in the current Super Eagles squad ply their trades in Europe where pitches are good, they find it difficult to cope and play well on the pitches in Nigeria during international matches at home.

“A lot of us play in Europe now so we play on great pitches that it is easy to just manipulate the ball and play freely. If we have that in Nigeria I feel like it will be difficult to beat us and I am confident enough to say that not many teams can beat us.”

“It is just a pitch of grass, it’s just a pitch of grass, no cut. Like just grass in it,” Iwobi said about the condition of the pitches in Nigeria.