Nigeria coach Eric Chelle acknowledged his position with the Super Eagles remains precarious as his team prepares to face Tanzania in its Africa Cup of Nations opener, but is choosing to focus on the job at hand for the moment.
"Since I took this job, every time my life with this team is maybe after this game, it is finished," Chelle said at the prematch news conference on Monday. "I am only focused about this game, my players, my officials."
Speaking ahead of Monday's Group C match in Fes, the coach declined to discuss his future beyond the AFCON, saying any conversations about his tenure would come after the tournament concludes.
"After the AFCON, for sure we will have a meeting with my FA and we will talk about everything," Chelle said. "But now, this is not the moment to answer the question. I prefer to answer the question about the game, the tournament, the players and our game project.
"We stay focused on that, we stay forced on the first game because this is the most important game right now. To come in this tournament right now to show our ambitions and after that, we have the time to talk about everything."
Part of the reason for the pressure on Chelle stems from Nigeria's failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup after a topsy-turvy qualifying run that saw the Super Eagles struggle to stay in contention before the Malian was appointed and helped steady the ship. But the campaign proved ultimately unsuccessful, and Chelle, who was hired to get to a destination rather than just course-correct, has faced calls to be fired by the Nigeria federation.
To its credit, the Nigeria federation has resisted those calls, but the storm is far from over. Chelle declined to dwell on it
"We have a game tomorrow, we are here to win this first game," he said. "We have a tournament, we are here to be ambitious and I don't have the time to think about what happened before. I prefer to stay focused on what is happening right now. After this tournament, we will have a meeting. This is not a moment to talk about the World Cup qualifiers."
Former captain William Troost-Ekong, a key cog in the Super Eagles defensive unit for years, recently announced his international retirement. That was quickly followed by injury to his successor, the outstanding youngster Benjamin Fredrick, along with Ola Aina, who was injured during the qualifiers and did not recover on time to make the AFCON squad.
Despite these personnel concerns, the coach expressed confidence in his defensive unit as currently constituted
"I am not worried," he said. "I am trusting my guys. Of course I prefer that all these other guys are here, but now I am with my guys here and I trust in them so much. We have a big defence, and we work a lot on that.
"When you want to defend, this is not a question of only the defenders but a question about all the players on the pitch. Definitely, we are ready to play this game."
Against Tanzania, the three-time African champions will look to begin their AFCON campaign with three points as they seek to end a trophy drought dating back to 2013.
And Chelle took an unusual approach when discussing Nigeria's opening opponent.
"We didn't talk about Tanzania, and this is not a lack of respect," he said. "We prefer to stay focused on my players and our game project. The first opponent is us."