City of David appoint Austin Eguavoen

C.O.D United have announced today the appointment of former national team captain and manager, Augustine Eguavoen its Manager. After parting ways with former Manager Bode Awakan, the club has moved swiftly to appoint the former Enyimba and Sharks coach to fill the vacant managerial position. Eguavoen started his managerial career in 2001 at Silema Wanderers in Malta and guided the club to a 2nd place finish. 

He then went on to manage local clubs Enyimba FC of Aba and Sharks F.C of Port Harcourt while also spending some time in South Africa as Manager of South African side Black Leopards. Eguavoen has been coach of the U-17, U-20, U-23 and managed the full National Team of Nigeria at 2006 African Nations Cup in the Egypt where he led the team to a bronze medal finish.

He spent his playing career playing for clubs such as ACB of Lagos, Kortkijk and Genk of Belgium, Sacramento Scorpions and Torpedo Moscow amongst others accumulating over 500 appearances. He won 53 caps for Nigeria and was a key member of the Tunisia 94 team that emerged African Champions and was a part of the team that qualified and represented Nigeria at the World Cup for the first time ever.

Speaking on the appointment, Shola Opaleye, Chief Executive of the club said the experience of the coach was a major factor. " Eguavoen is highly experienced at the very highest level of football and we hope he can bring his wealth of experience to bear on our ambitions to gain promotion. He is passionate, driven and ambitious and we are glad to have him join us. We have very good young players here and we have further reinforced by signing experienced hands like Kabiru Alausa. 

We feel putting Eguavoen in charge now is the right thing to do and we hope his knowledge, experience and leadership skills would help our players become better players and help us gain promotion. One of his immediate goals is to improve the quality of our play so that fans that troop out to watch us play will get value for their time and money. That is very important to us. We want a mix of good performances and good results."

Speaking on his decision to join the club, Eguavoen said “I am very happy to join C.O.D United. I am very excited about their approach to football and I feel at home already. They are forward looking, very ambitious and brave which are all attributes I share. I have seen the players, they are talented no doubt and all I can do is make them even better and work with them to gain promotion."

Eguaveon also insisted that joining C.O.D is not a step down. "I actually see this as a great move for me. This is a hugely ambitious club. It is well run by intelligent people and all the structures even the so called premier league clubs lack are all in place here. I am definitely positive this is a good move for me and I am sure come end of the season when we gain promotion, I would be proved right.

C.O.D United are placed 4th on the NNL table, just 3 points off table toppers Crown FC of Ogbomosho.

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