Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr has invited Enyimba forward, Anayo Iwuala as a replacement for club Almeria striker, Umar Sadiq ahead of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Benin and Lesotho.
This was confirmed via the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) twitter handle on Friday evening.
.@EnyimbaFC Anayo Iwuala to replace Sadiq Umar for Benin Rep. and Lesotho clashes. #soarsupereagles#team9jaStrong pic.twitter.com/FU3kjuIvfr
— The NFF 🇳🇬 (@thenff) March 19, 2021
Umar Sadiq won’t be making his debut for Nigeria this month after Almeria revealed he wouldn’t be released for the two Afcon qualifiers against the Benin Republic and Lesotho.
La Unión said in a statement released on their social media pages that they are not satisfied with the conditions put in place to guard against Covid-19 and would not be releasing their star striker for international duty.
Umar now joined Nantes winger, Moses Simone whose club also failed to release him due to Covid-19 travel ban, which will force players to be quarantined for two weeks.
By Augustine Akhilomen
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37 Comments
Lobatan
This is very serious ooo. How come you opted for Nigerian made players that you were referring to as not “good enough”?
I’m sorry for this country because of our leaders.
We have a great country but we don’t have good leaders in this country.
Until we Nigerians decide on our own.
Mr. Amaju Pinnick is not a good leader. He is very selfish.
If Oga Rohr lead Super Eagles to Cameroon with his character then Super Eagles is finished.
You are turning to home based players because you don’t have any alternative and you knew that we have quality players in the league but your own selfish interests and wrong
tactics have spoiled everything for Super Eagles.
How market Oga Rohr deciples? I’m sorry for all of you.
God bless Nigeria!!!
Mr man use ur brain for once is it compulsory to comment on every post?,u don’t have a point and have never got points here,
NO, Since players from Europe are barred from turning up, he should have overlooked players from home and come to carry you and your brothers in your street to go and play Benin republic….LMAO. When he didn’t call up homebased, you cry…now he calls up homebased, you mourn….LMAO.
Pele o Osanyin oduduwa
Omo9ja you’re always confused with your comments.
I wish rohr will learn after this and set up a strong home based team that he can always choose from in case of loss of form,or Injuries to his players.how will this boy now cope with players he has never trained with for once
He has invited one now and you’re already bringing up excuse.
How many training did Aribo do with the team before playing against Ukraine?
Hahahahaha……help us ask him….LMAO. The ones he has been clamoring should be invited, how where they supposed to cope b4. LMAO.
The same people who wanted to behead Rohr for not inviting home-based are now complaining….LMAO. Ngwa let homebased come and show us they are better than the foreign based with 2 training sessions as some of you have claimed na.
Rohr keyboard warriors, FYI the Ghanaian coach has opened camp since two weeks ago with home based players and Chinese based players.
Rohr already has excuses for failure should the team fail albeit non availability of key players. He is suffering from excusites. But the Lagos fans will teach and format him and SE players in Lagos should they fumble.
Keyboard loser, how many of them has he eventually named in his final list? 5 outfield players out of about 24 or so he invited. The final squad is still dominated by foreign based….LMAO….and it will be a miracle if 2 will eventually get to play. Lol.
Here is the Ghana squad in full:
Goalkeepers: Richard Ofori (Orlando Pirates), Razak Abalora (Asante Kotoko), Eric Ofori Antwi (Medeama SC), Danlad Ibrahim (Asante Kotoko).
Defenders: Baba Abdul Rahman (PAOK), Gideon Mensah (Vitoria de Guimaraes), Benson Annan (MLK Zilina), Philemon Baffuor (Dreams FC), Nicholas Opoku (Amiens SC), Kasim Nuhu (1899 Hoffenheim), Ganiyu Ismael (Asante Kotoko), Stephen Ambrosius (Hamburger SV).
Midfielders: Mohammed Kudus (Ajax Amsterdam), Mubarak Wakaso (Jiangsu Suning FC), Afriyie Acquah (Yeni Malatyaspor), Emmanuel Lomotey (Amiens SC), Iddrisu Baba (RCD Mallorca), Gladson Awako (Great Olympics), Kwame Afriyie Poku (Colchester United), Osman Bukari (Gent), Joseph Esso (Dreams FC), Kamal Sowah (OH Leuven), Fatawu Issahaku (Steadfast FC).
Forwards: Emmanuel Boateng (Dalian Professional), Emmanuel Gyasi (Spezia), Kwame Opoku (Asante Kotoko), John Antwi (Pyramids FC), Kwasi Okyere Wriedt (Willem II), Caleb Ekuban (Trabzonspor).
It is not only in Nigeria home-based are training materials….LMAO
Total value of Ghanaian football team in dollar is 35m while the super eagles is 108m dollar
I don’t care whether Iwuala is from Kafanshan or Kaura Namoda, he has to perform against Benin.
I have watched clips of Anayo Iwuala on youtube and i think the guy is quality.
The NFF should invite Odion Ighalo and Nwskaeme
Iwala, oh boy, this’s your chance, I know you can do it, grab this life changing opportunities with your life, remember finidi George in 1992 against Burkina Faso in Lagos.
Does anyone know if any of the invited players will make it for the match or are we turning our attention to the players from the Nigerian premier league? Lets know now so we can start preparing for the excuses the coaches and the rest of the technical crew will give should the team under perform.
Atleast it looks like balogun will be around, his team has already won the Scottish league and they are out of the Europa league, so he and aribo should be here.
We also have our non playing captain musa, he might be asked to dust off his jersey and put it on so at least the team will have his experience with them.
As for the rest of the players in Europe, im not sure their teams can risk any of them now. Which goes to show how much out players are valued by their teams.
Its a pity all this is happening now, its depriving a lot of players making their much expected debuts for the National team. But I believe there is still time on their hands for that.
My concern now is if we are to depend solely on home-based players for the two matches, who will put the players together since coach rohr has majorly worked with the foreign based players.
Who knows who and who to invite and how to use them.?
Maybe we should just use The whole Enyimba fc team and just fix musa, aribo and balogun in the team.
Hahahaha! Now that will be a sight!!!
Someone said we should call back odion ighalo and nwakeme. You think saudi Arabia and turkey are willing to release their players.
The good news is we are not the only team affected, all other teams are facing the same challenge but it looks like they are better prepared than we are and they are handling it better too.
Sportsfan I salute you!
Sportsfan great. I salute you
When we were screaming for a home based team, the PE teacher decided to to sit in France monitoring his hotel business and claiming to be scouting for players.Now see the dilemma we are facing.
@tosin … What is the duty of YOBO being the assistant coach ?
What do you understand by the word assistant ?
Yes YOBO’s assignment was to scout local players, please tell us how many of them have being called to the national team for training, you heard all the excuses of the PE teacher that they come and then vanish to Europe. You tell us what is the job of the coach then? Isn’t he paid all this money to discover players for the Super Eagles. Shouldn’t he be handling the CHAN squad, abi are we paying for him to handle foreign based players
Oga, if Rohr does scout the local league as all this exinternational and their agents want us to believe, he won’t be making swift changes with local Boys.
That means he has their list already, so please stop all this unnecessary criticism. The man is doing his job
Since when did CHAN become the responsibility of Super Eagles Coach directly. Right from the time of Keshi, till now, The Super Eagles coach was not meant to also Coach the CHAN team. That has been the work of the Assistant coach. From Amokachi, to Salisu, to Amokakpabo have all been handling the CHAN at different times. Let say the truth, everything is not Genet Rohr
NFF should be held responsible for not having a coach that could bring the CHAN Eagles together. Rohr job is to pick some of the top performers from the CHAN team to the main Super Eagles. And that was exactly how Ezenwa became one of his key men. He was the CHAN goalkeeper. So when the NPFL is hardly in season, and the CHAN not functional, from where will he get the players from.
We can also blame Rohr for Insecurity problems in Nigeria, and for players welfare issue, since we must just find a way to blame him.
@Ikeben u are right, lots of blames need to go around but GR should also take some of the blame as well imho. GR could and still can make a permanent mark when it comes to Nigerian football for the better. No where in the world do u see assistant coaches scouting for players for the coach when the coach himself is not incapacitated. You see Southgate going to matches to watch English players play, same with Low, Manchini, Enrique, Deschamps etc. As long as they are healthy, these guys will go scout for players themselves albeit with input from their assistants. Don’t get me wrong ooo, there are issues like insecurity, poor roads, poor player management affecting our league that makes it hard for a coach to scout players in Nigeria, but my brother, some of these games are now televised that he GR doesn’t even need to be there physically although his presence will be an extra motivation to the players to put in that extra effort to get noticed by the coach. I may be wrong ooo but oliseh guided the chan team to the nations cup, I may be mistaken. GR contract was revised for him to be in Nigeria for a certain period of time, while there he should be scouting players bcos ultimately tge buck stops with him good or bad. If am a good, there are certain ingredients I need in my soup, I won’t allow my assistant who am not sure of to pick out my ingredients for me, that I won’t allow lai lai. Moreover, he isn’t supposed to be the foreign SE coach, he is the SE coach period. I do like GR and think he has done good work for 9ja considering were we were b4. But to be honest, we should have a solid homebased team by now after 5yrs in the helm. The argument that local players jump ship after just a cap or 2 don’t really hold water bcos GR himself uses and discard players that don’t suit his style and replaces them with better or almost thesane quality He should do the same with the local team too. As poor as the U20 team was, there are a few players from there that played relatively well since GR likes young players. Some of them if not all are still in 9ja there. The league has been running for some months now and the excuse of not having a function league doesn’t hold water anymore. I do understand that alot needs to be done to make GR work alot easier but he himself needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work. Am not sure if in his contract, it was stipulated that he isn’t responsible for the local SE, then if that’s the case then he isn’t responsible but still he should be able to look for players within 9ja and Africa that fits his playing philosophy. Just my thoughts.
Proudly naija just asked a question. Even the coach of some of Europe’s top teams do there scouting themselves. Please was there a written rule that the coach of the Chan team must be a local coach. How did he help in the preparation of the team. Abge it just shows that ROHR doesn’t care about out local players.
My only question is what’s the essence of placing a striker PETER OLAYINKA on the Standby list and calling Iwuala abi wahala deni.. lol. Just kidding though. But I think Olayinka should have replaced Sadiq instead
@Chairmanfemi,probably Olayinka’s club has joined other European clubs to stop there ward from joining the super eagles.I believe the nff may have had contact with his club
@Greenturf… Is anyone remembering Junior Oluwafemi Ajayi of AL Ahly also? Or is there a conspiracy never to give that young man a chance? In my opinion since players from the NPFL are being hastily drafted in already, it may be wisdom to call up Junior also, how about players like Kingsley Sokari at CS Sfiaxen? If Turkey is not stopping players what about Kayode Olarenwaju and Azubuike Okechukwu? Or Iyayi Believe Atienwem of Dinamo Zagreb who just edged out Mourinho’s Tottenham from Europe League? Nigeria has some very good players still in Tunisia League…
The arithmetic is as simple as A,B,C…
Form your own national team and invite them ASAP….
ALLOW US TO HAVE PEACE ON THIS FORUM BIKO….
HABA…. PESIN NO GO REST AGAIN????
MUST EVERY TOM AND DICK BE INVITED TO THE NATIONAL TEAM???
@UBFE… must every Tom, Dick and Harry be invited to the national team? Meanwhile since news broke out that our regulars will not be coming… it is you who has been frightened the most, that Rohr may get exposed in these last two games. We are all only offering advise to help him… If European based players cannot showup, extend your dragnet to North Africa where even you can attest the league is even more competitive than NPFL. I just hope we will keep lying to ourselves…
Frigthen????
How???
On what ground????
Get frighten for SE being my father’s property or my heritage???
See where u miss it?@Jimmyball….
If i may ask, is SE Rohr’s family property???
If NFF fires him, does that mark the end of his life???
When did coaching bcome a do or die affair???
Our very own that suppose to build the SE failed woefully, did heaven fall???
Aren’t they still existing and bragging???
So what’s the essence of the “useless” advice???
Or u just want to talk simply bcos talk sweet???
Spare me this crap of advice joooooorrrrr….
Oga na you dey mind them, yeye dey smell. Politics all over the place. Even Simy dey bang in goals like kilode for crotone. And oshimen is yet to shine.
@JimmyBall Junior Ajayi and Sokari came to mind because both have had a good run with their clubs this season.
In my opinion Ajayi Junior should have come in for Sadiq Umar instead Anayo Iwuala who plays as a winger was preferred to a player who could play as a striker,support striker as well in the wings.
It’s a strange decision.
Besides Al Ahly is one of the best clubs in the continent and Ajayi Junior is a regular.
I think Rohr and the Nff should have other plans as well.In a couple of days we should know the 23 players available for the crucial nations cup qualifiers.Then we would be in a better position to assess the players and our chances of qualification.
@Greenturf… I agree with you.
Respect bruh
Na wa o, i am so much confused here with fellow forumites. Folks have wailed and crucified the coaching staff for not calling up recognizable talents into the SE just as was the case when Ahmed Musa broke into the team back in the days. An opportunity therefore presented itself for the coach to see the likes of Anayo and Adeleke again the coach is being faulted for doing what many has been clamouring for. I no sabi wetin the guy wan do again wey go satisfy Nigerians ohhh. Our over sabi no get part two for this country sef. Whoever plays on the 27th and 30th, my own prayer sha be say make we get the needed ticket to AFCON because i cannot imagine Nigeria not qualifying. It will be so devastating for the country and a great opportunity lost to stake a major claim at a 4th AFCON title.
#shalom
French govt granting quarantine exceptions to foreign players with conditions;
https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/soccer/news/french-government-grants-exemption-after-depays-plea-for-full-quarantine-waiver-for-international-players/n6rr72g8vpyy19f0st2huoq02