Nigeria head coach Justine Madugu: ‘As Africans, we love expressing ourselves’

At 61, most top-level head coaches have nostalgic moments as they reflect on the high points of their topsy-turvy careers. But for Justine Madugu, who made the 2025 Ballon d’Or shortlist for women’s team coach of the year after dramatically leading the Super Falcons to a record 10th Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title in Morocco in July, his managerial odyssey is only beginning. Returning to Morocco to win an 11th Wafcon title for Nigeria is the next feather he desperately wants to add to his cap. It could have been so different for the library science graduate of Bayero University, in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, who looked as if he would never get a crack at international management, after being an assistant coach of the Falcons for 12 years. The son of a Nigerian former army regimental sergeant-major, and the eldest of six children who grew up in Kaduna (also in northern Nigeria), Madugu did not get the ringing approval of his strict father to choose a football career. “Because of my involvement in football, I was seen as an unserious person by my family,” he says. “But now it is the football man that is looked up to, to support the family.” With a Wafcon bonus of more than $100,000 (£77,000) due to Madugu from the Nigerian government, family demands will not end soon. But with a Wafcon trophy to defend in the first quarter of 2026, Madugu has little time to savour the triumph over Morocco in the final at Rabat’s Olympic Stadium. “What we achieved at the last Wafcon is in the past,” he says in Abeokuta, in south-western Nigeria. “We have to look forward, as we know there will be a higher challenge. When we were at the last Wafcon, we didn’t go there as champions. As we are going back to Morocco as champions, everybody will make sure they compete effectively against us. We have to double our effort, to make sure that the standard we have set is maintained.” Madugu was given a two-year contract extension, to 1 October 2027, by the Nigeria Football Federation after winning the Wafcon and is sanguine about a situation that may have upset others in his position, who would have felt they had earned a longer deal. “If you are offered a longer contract and the results don’t go your way, you could still be fired … So for me, it’s about getting down to work, doing the best we can and improving the standard of the team.” Before he took charge of the Falcons in September 2024, the team had been coached by the Swede, Thomas Dennerby, and then by an American, Randy Waldrum, under whom Madugu was an assistant. He unashamedly intends to take Nigeria in a very different tactical direction. “They adopted a more defensive approach and relied a bit on the counterattack … But for us, as Africans, as Nigerians, we love expressing ourselves [on the pitch] … When you defend and you regain possession, what do you do? You attack … It’s more about numbers, about how many people are playing at the back and then how many people are going forward.” After Nigeria’s impressive second-round run at the 2023 World Cup in Australia, Madugu believes that the 2027 edition in Brazil – for which the 2026 Wafcon serves as a qualifying tournament – should be the team’s time to become a serious contender for the trophy. “The players we are going to play against [at the World Cup] are the same players they play against at their clubs, so what is the difference? We must believe in ourselves. We must believe in our abilities. I see the team getting to that level [of reaching the World Cup semi-final or final], if given all the necessary support … We need to improve on a lot of things, particularly the facilities and the welfare of the players. “In previous World Cups we have played against Australia, we played against England and with good results. It’s a matter of building on those results.” But even with a burning desire to make the Super Falcons contenders in Brazil, should they maintain their unbroken qualification run that stretches back to the inaugural 1991 World Cup in China, Madugu says a desire to develop players into decent human beings is his raison d’être. “It’s about developing them holistically, because there is always life after football. If you don’t teach them certain values, they begin to misconstrue certain privileges for rights, because of the fame they have as players … We encourage them to go back to school, so that they have something to fall back on, when they retire.” Retirement, not surprisingly, is not on the horizon for Madugu, as he savours the Indian summer of his career, seeking – with the most successful national team in the history of African football – to make Nigeria the first African side, male or female, to lift a World Cup. Get in touch If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email moving.goalposts@theguardian.com. This is an extract from our free weekly email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.