The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has announced that Bruno Labbadia, a seasoned German coach, will take over as the head coach of the Super Eagles. The news was shared by NFF Secretary General Mohammed Sanusi on Tuesday morning.
Bruno Labbadia was born on February 8, 1966, in Darmstadt, West Germany. Standing at 1.78 meters (5 feet 10 inches), Labbadia played as a striker for several clubs, including Darmstadt 98, Hamburger SV, FC Kaiserslautern, Bayern Munich, FC Köln, Werder Bremen, Arminia Bielefeld, and Karlsruher SC. Over his career, he made 557 club appearances and scored 204 goals. He won the DFB-Pokal with FC Kaiserslautern in the 1989-90 season and the Bundesliga title with Bayern Munich in the 1993-94 season. Despite his success at the club level, he played only two matches for the German national team.
At 58 years old, Bruno Labbadia has never managed a national team before, but he brings extensive experience from his time with various top clubs. His coaching career includes stints at Darmstadt 98 (2003–2006), Greuther Fürth (2007–2008), Bayer Leverkusen (2008–2009), Hamburger SV (2009–2010 and 2015–2016), VfB Stuttgart (2010–2013 and 2022–2023), VfL Wolfsburg (2018–2019), and Hertha BSC (2020–2021).
Labbadia’s family has Italian roots; his parents hail from Lenola, a town in the Lazio region of Italy. They moved to Germany as guest workers and settled in Schneppenhausen, near Darmstadt, in the Hesse region. When he was 18, Labbadia gave up his Italian citizenship to become a German citizen due to the rule at the time in Germany that limited each football team to only two foreign players.
