Afrigather 
Tremendous Eagles captain, William Troost-Ekong, has revealed the primary cause he joined Saudi Professional League facet, Al-Kholood, from PAOK Thessaloniki, regardless of profitable the league title with the Greek facet, Soccernet.ng reviews.
The 31-year-old final performed an official membership sport for PAOK in December, simply earlier than the AFCON 2023 match kicked off in Ivory Coast. After the match, he suffered an damage that saved him out of motion until the top of the season.
His show in Cote D’ivoire noticed him linked with a transfer to a number of Center Jap golf equipment and the previous Watford man ended up signing for Al-Kholood in a deal price round €1.1m.
Talking about why he made the change to the Center East, Ekong revealed the consideration got here after he received the POTY award on the AFCON match.
“It was one thing I wasn’t fascinated with earlier than the AFCON. I used to be taking part in in Greek PAOK. I used to be taking part in European soccer, profitable the league, one thing I haven’t completed earlier than and we’re aiming for the Champions League and now they lastly obtain European League. Through the AFCON, I used to be making an attempt to concentrate on performing for Nigeria,” the previous Tottenham Hotspur man mentioned in an interview with The Counter Assault Podcast.
Ekong captained Nigeria to a second-place end in Saudi, and instantly had surgical procedure on his huberus femuris muscle in his proper leg. Day without work the pitch meant he needed to do lots of restoration and considering on his future as a footballer.
“Absolutely after that the rumours began and my agent spoke with many golf equipment from world wide however there was lots of curiosity from Saudi Arabia. The months after I used to be centered on getting match once more, and after we got here collectively once more at the beginning of the season we spoke about all the pieces then I made my thoughts up that was one thing I wished to do if the supply was proper, however on the identical time all people speak in regards to the alternative you will have there to warranty your future to consider my household, youngsters,” the one-time Greek Tremendous League winner concluded.
Ekong featured in Nigeria’s two AFCON 2025 Qualifying video games towards Benin Republic and Rwanda, marking his return to the Tremendous Eagles group after he missed the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in June.
Adefolahan Guerreiro
Adefolahan is a multilingual journalist and author at Soccernet Nigeria.
With a monitor file of involvement in School sports activities, Adefolahan is targeted on crafting partaking soccer content material and utilising his language abilities and in depth sports activities information to boost content material accessibility for a world viewers.
He has interviewed Nigerian stars like Finidi George, Junior Lokosa, and Abraham Onahi Ogbu.
