Afrigather Pricey Reader,
Welcome to 2024. I hope that you’ll obtain all of your goals on this new yr. I want you and your loved ones all one of the best in good well being and prosperity.
These are tough instances for each Nigerian, residence and overseas. Our collective ache is felt irrespective of the place you’re world wide. One can not escape the information of financial turmoil and safety upheaval, killings on the Plateau, and kidnappings within the metropolis. Nigeria is confronted with monumental challenges, and it wasn’t straightforward to have a good time the vacations. However, as at all times, we are going to stay longing for higher days.
That’s the reason the Africa Cup of Nations is essential now. Everyone knows that the Tremendous Eagles symbolize greater than a soccer crew; they symbolize our hopes and aspirations as a individuals. When the boys don the inexperienced and white and chant Come up o compatriots in entrance of the world, we wish them to fly with wings as Eagles and conquer the whole lot in entrance of them. We would like them to attain objectives and preserve clear sheets.
Nevertheless, the crew’s energy lately has not been inspiring. We have now didn’t win video games convincingly, and we now have the worst goalkeeping disaster since I began masking the crew virtually twenty years in the past.
Peseiro’s squad: Is that one of the best we now have?
Coach Jose Peseiro released his list of 25 players for the Afcon final week. As common, just like the famed elephant that was killed within the market, all method of knives and slicing implements have been dropped at dissect its entrails.
Is Peseiro’s squad ok to win us a fourth Afcon title? Can we do it once more, because the communication managers of the Tremendous Eagles have been drumming into our ears on a number of platforms over the previous couple of months?
Is Ahmed Musa worthy of a role in the Super Eagles regardless of enjoying solely 4 matches at his membership, Sivasspor, in Turkey within the 2023/24 season? He has the expertise and earns respect amongst his teammates to maintain the camp centered, however does he should make one other Afcon squad?
I used to be at his first Afcon 11 years in the past when the Eagles received the trophy in Johannesburg. And as a lot as I
respect his legacy in Nigerian soccer, he ought to have been stored out of the squad this time. He did announce that Cameroon 2021 could be his final look, I’m wondering why he didn’t preserve that promise.
I riled up the Nigeria Sports activities Village Sq. WhatsApp group members final week after I tried to justify Musa’s inclusion. I even predicted that Musa could be very key to Nigeria’s Afcon problem and that he would rating our title-winning purpose. Everybody thinks I’m mad. Or the unsaid that I could have been paid. Haha.
The return of Ekong
I’m completely happy on the inclusion of William Troost-Ekong within the squad. The protection wants his expertise. I caught up with him in Frankfurt after his membership PAOK Thessaloniki’s Europa Convention League victory towards Eintracht on November 30. We talked about his non-invitation to the crew, his final being for the 4-0 pleasant defeat to Portugal in 2022.
He advised me about his continued curiosity in enjoying for Nigeria and the sacrifices he endured resulting in dropping his place at Watford after Cameroon 2021. The Afcon is essential to Ekong, and he needs to win it with the Tremendous Eagles following the bronze medal at Egypt 2019.
I used to be glad to see him included within the squad by Peseiro. He ought to supply extra expertise for his information of African soccer within the central protection, the place Calvin Bassey and Semilore Ajayi have usually struggled in current instances to maintain opponents at bay. The Afcon is just too necessary to not have ample cowl within the again line.
The yr of Boniface?
Whereas final yr was the yr of Victor Osimhen, Nigeria’s first CAF Males’s Participant of the Yr since 1999, Victor Boniface would be the attacking star of the Afcon for the Tremendous Eagles. His array of abilities as each a striker and creator will assist to strengthen our fame as a harmful crew within the ahead line.
Boniface arrived within the German Bundesliga this season and has notched up objectives and assists, resulting in accolades within the German media. His 5 Rookie of the Month awards have proven his influence on the Bayer Leverkusen crew goes past scoring objectives. His creativity on the ball and the power to push play up entrance and ship passes to his teammates units him aside from the all-action battering ram fashion of Osimhen.
If they’re each match all through the match, they may present a relentless headache to our opponents and ship the objectives that ought to preserve us within the match.
And if we’re fortunate to have an inspiring efficiency from the goalkeeping division that’s our Achilles heel, we might be able to have a fantastic Afcon and probably attain the ultimate in Abidjan on February 11.
The midfield seems to be too skinny by way of call-ups. The recent injury to Wilfred Ndidi means we are going to battle in that zone.
However by vibes and inshallah, we might have match. Nevertheless, don’t preserve your hopes up, of us, nothing is promised.
Joyful New Yr, as soon as once more.
