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“As a Mr. Chef ‘envoy’, most of my questions were focused on the players’ bud tastes. Moses Simon told me that his favourite dish is pounded yam with ‘egusi’ soup; Victor Osimhen chose ‘amala’ (yam flour) and ‘gbegiri and ewedu’ soup (beans soup and jute leaves). Calvin Bassey said he loved ‘jollof rice and dodo’ (fried plantain). I am sure that Mr. Chef is reading this and taking the players’ meal orders.”
The foregoing is an extract from my diary of Sunday, 21 December 2025, when I visited the Super Eagles at their training ground, the Sardienne Complex here in Fez, Morocco. I speculated that Mr. Chef, the Official Food Seasoning Partners of the Nigerian national football teams, must be taking the players’ meal orders. Well, I was bang on target.
Today, Wednesday, 24 December 2025, I decided to pay a visit to the Super Eagles HOTEL SAHRAI, not to interview the players who needed to rest properly from the exertions of the previous match day against Tanzania, but to find out how well they were being taken care of by the hotel. I was taken to the hotel kitchen to witness dinner being cooked and, what a pleasant coincidence: on the menu list indeed were ‘ogbono’ soup, ‘egusi’ soup, and, wait for it, jollof rice!
Mezgueldi Mohammed is the Executive Chef of Hotel Sahrai. He wasn’t feeling quite well, so he delegated his deputy, 2nd Executive Chef Aziz Salaheddine, to talk to me. Aziz didn’t speak English, so a smartly dressed Achraf Alazraq, director of food and beverages at the hotel, served as the interpreter. The interview took place in their cozy restaurant.
Aziz has been a Chef for 15 years now. He regaled me with talk about Morocco’s food culture and how Couscous is the number one meal on the national food league table. But, for his Super Eagle guests, pasta and continental dishes were their favourites, aside from the local cuisines from Nigeria. And this is where Mr. Chef Nigeria comes fully into the picture.
During my tour of the hotel’s expansive kitchen, I met a team of cooks clad in white overalls busy preparing dinner for the Super Eagles. The kitchen staff couldn’t have been fewer than 15, from my rough estimate. Men were slicing up loads of beef and chicken while the women were stirring big pots of various soups. Naturally, I was attracted to a black lady at work. She turned out to be Esther, who had been flown in from Nigeria to supervise the cooking of local dishes for the Super Eagles.
“In this pot is ‘ogbono’ soup,” she told me as she stirred frantically. “The other pot is for ‘egusi’ soup to be taken with swallows. Then, there’s jollof rice. The players love everything.” Obviously, Mr.ChefNigeria is living up to its name as the foremost food seasoning in Nigeria, and making its presence felt on the Super Eagles’ meals as an official partner.
Esther is not the only Nigerian in the hotel kitchen. When it was time for photographs, she sent for her partner, Queen, who came running over from another section of the kitchen. They were joined for the photo shoot by other Moroccan cooks, Fatima and Amina, and the Chief Pastry Chef, Rachid Abdelmanay. They were all very excited to shout ‘Up Super Eagles’ into my rolling camera when I encouraged them to do so.
From the kitchen, I was also taken on a tour of the restaurant where the Super Eagles ate their meals. There was a long table already set for the players, and two smaller tables by the side for the team officials and backroom staff. The restaurant manager, a lady, Boutayna, showed me where the buffet was usually arranged, a separate table for tea and coffee, and a corner where assorted fruits were already lying in wait for the Nigerian team. Another round of photographs followed.
Back in the Executive Chef’s office in the kitchen, Muhammed congratulated me on Nigeria’s 2-1 victory over Tanzania in our opening match the previous day. “Of course, we’re supporting Nigeria because the players are our guests and we want them to continue winning,” he said. But when I asked what would happen if Nigeria were to encounter Morocco during the tournament, Muhammed paused, breathed in the sweet aroma coming from the pots in his kitchen, and then said: “That would be a Third World War!”
Everyone burst into laughter.
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*MY visit to the Super Eagles camp was arranged deliberately to avoid any distractions to the players. I arrived with Complete Sports photographer, Ganiyu Yusuf, as the team departed for training, and we left the hotel, coincidentally, just as they were arriving back from the training ground. As they disembarked from the team bus, I noticed that only the players who featured against Tanzania went for the training, presumably for the traditional recovery session. Team captain Wilfred Ndidi was the last to walk back into the hotel.
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*IT HAS been a very cold and wet day in Fez today, forcing most Nigerians here to stay indoors. Were it not for my scheduled appointment at the Eagles hotel, I would not have stepped out either.
After our opening match against Tanzania on Tuesday night, I didn’t get back to my hotel until midnight, famished and fatigued. The rain that started falling during the match continued overnight and into Wednesday morning, and it had not subsided when I went to the Eagles hotel in the evening. What a wet and freezing cold day. Huuugh!
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*ACTION continued at the AFCON in other groups and cities. In Group E, Algeria opened their campaign with a 3-0 win over 10-man Sudan in Rabat, with Algeria’s star player Riyad Mahrez scoring twice in the 2nd and 61st minutes. In the group’s other game, Burkina Faso snatched a dramatic win with two late goals against Equatorial Guinea. After the 10-man Guineans scored late in the 85th minute, the Burkinabes fought back very late in the 95th and 98th minutes to snatch the win.
In Group F, Manchester United’s Amad Diallo scored the only goal as defending champions Côte d’Ivoire edged Mozambique 1-0 in Marrakech, while Cameroun beat their Central African neighbours Gabon by the same score in Agadir. Karl Etta Eyong grabbed the solitary goal for the Indomitable Lions in the 6th minute.
With the first round of matches concluded in all the groups, the big guns have delivered wins in their opening games, while the underdogs are still searching for upsets. Christmas Day, Thursday, 25 December, is a rest day in all groups, and I will probably take a break and rest my diary, too. Action resumes again on Friday, 26 December. Join me again then……
