TRENDWET

Jose Mourinho’s representatives are meeting Manchester United officials as the Portuguese moves closer to becoming the club’s next manager.

Mourinho’s agent, Jorge Mendes, flew into London on Tuesday morning and is leading the discussions. A deal is unlikely to be announced Today but confirmation that Mourinho will take over is expected this week.

The Super Falcons of Nigeria who conquered where their male counterparts failed by qualifying for the African Women's Cup of Nations tournament were reportedly paid N10,000. This is a paltry sum compared to the $4000 the Men's senior football team get for a draw and $5000 for a win.

Read the report by Goal after the cut....

''Goal learnt that the players and officials of the Super Falcons were decamped on Tuesday evening and they were handed the sum of 10,000 Naira that was meant to get them to their various destinations.''

''The fate of the nine foreign-based players who participated in the Falcons' qualifying series is unconfirmed. Though another source hinted that they also received their return flight ticket fares.''

''An NFF source informed Goal that the team was already aware of the organization's financial challenges and provision of transport fare with plans to pay their bonuses and allowances soon.''

''Unlike their male counterparts, Goal understands that the women are yet to be paid bonuses since last year's Olympic qualifying campaign against Mali under former coach Edwin Okon.

''Efforts made to speak to the Super Falcons officials were unsuccessful as they declined from commenting on the matter while NFF officials are currently in an extra ordinary congress in Abuja.''

Sergio Ramos was issued a second yellow card which left Los Blancos with 10 men in the 84th minute with the game at 1 – 1 after Gerard Pique and Karim Benzema had scored in the 63rd and 85th minute respectively for their respective clubs.

Cristiano Ronaldo got the winner five minutes from time, a goal which shattered Barcelona’s 39-game unbeaten with the game ending 1 – 2.

However, Pique stated that the sending off of Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos, disrupted his team’s plans.

“We didn’t know how to play a man up and it was difficult to control the game.”

However, Lionel Messi would be disappointed he was not on the score-sheet on the night after hoping to get his 500th career goal in the El Clasico.

Messi has scored an incredible 499 career goals for Argentina and Barcelona at just 28 with an impressive 21 of those coming against Barcelona’s biggest rivals.

Barcelona will now hope to put the defeat behind them on April 5 when they welcome Atletico Madrid in a first-leg of the quarter final match of the Uefa Champions League, while Real Madrid travel to Germany to face Wolfsburg on April 6.

Nigeria's failure to qualify for a second straight Africa Cup of Nations has sparked fears about the country's chances of featuring in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

The Super Eagles failed to qualify for next year's Afcon on Tuesday night, after a 1-0 defeat to Egypt in Alexandria which followed last Friday's 1-1 draw in Kaduna.

The north African side top the qualifying group with seven points, five points clear of Nigeria, with both teams still having a final group game against bottom side Tanzania.

It will be the second consecutive tournament where the three-time African champions Nigeria will not feature in the finals and the team sent a contrite message to fans on Wednesday.

"We apologise for our inability to qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations. We gave this campaign our best efforts but sadly fell short," read a message on the @NGSuperEagles Twitter account.

Interim coach Samson Siasia, who took over after Sunday Oliseh's shock resignation a month ago, was more matter of fact.

"We inherited a broken bridge which we couldn't fix. We only amended it," he said.

TOUGHER BATTLE

The Super Eagles said their "focus is to get these setbacks behind us and quickly regroup for the fast-approaching 2018 World Cup qualifiers starting in October".

But Nigeria – who made the finals in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010 and 2014 – likely face a tougher battle to qualify when the draw is staged in June, with a lowly Fifa ranking and a dispirited team.

"Honestly, we do not look good going into the World Cup qualifiers," said former Nigeria international Garba Lawal, who featured at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups.

"Not qualifying for the biggest tournament in Africa, the Nations Cup, is a disaster on its own and the World Cup qualifiers will be a lot tougher.

"It is very disturbing because there are more questions than answers, like who is our next coach and what do we need to do to improve the current team?"

Nigeria's run of poor results and another failure to qualify for a major tournament heaps pressure on the executive committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to step down.

Sports minister Solomon Dalung even hinted at possible major changes at the federation.

"Nigerians cannot accept any reason for failure from anybody, so we either deliver or we give way to those who can deliver success," he said.

"After this abysmal performance at (the) Afcon qualifiers, it's important we return to the drawing board to plan for the future of football in Nigeria.

"We have no good reason not to qualify if we had planned well and also organised ourselves, rather it was crisis all the way rocking the NFF."

FOREIGN COACH

The leadership crisis in the NFF saw coach Stephen Keshi start the Afcon qualifying campaign in June last year against Chad.

But he was fired after an unhappy relationship with his employers. Oliseh replaced him only to quit last month, citing lack of support and breach of contract, including unpaid wages.

Siasia was then appointed for the back-to-back matches against Egypt, only for Pinnick to announce that the federation is seeking a permanent foreign coach.

Several European coaches have already been contacted, including Uganda's Serbian handler Milutin 'Micho' Sredojevic and the former Cameroon coach Paul Le Guen.

Claude Le Roy, who has worked with several African countries such as Senegal, Congo and DR Congo, has also been approached.

But whoever is appointed is likely to come up against the same difficulties as Keshi and Oliseh.

The poor finances of the state-funded NFF have prompted the withdrawal of several sponsors and forced the federation to tighten its belt.

That and contract defaults will certainly not win the confidence of the next coach.

I presume the sudden transfer of captaincy by coach Siasia from Musa to Mikel infused a psychological effect on Musa, even if he was the one that announce the change and appeared okay with it.

This is the Musa that is currently recording sublime performance for his club side and did a superb Job in the last edition of the World Cup especially against Argentina.

His performance in the two legged matches against Egypt was deplorable to the extent that if one decides to rate him as a player with such criterion, he will not be rated above those lesser average players playing in the streets.

He made a lot of ludicrous passes especially today, and he was totally neutral and innoxious in the game causing the Egyptian defenders to worry less about his threats and there by moving forward to assist in pressurizing our .defense.

We need decorum and tactfulness in our football.