Use first choice players for Eagles friendlies, Chukwu tells Rohr

A member of the Nigeria Football Federation’s Technical Committee, Christian Chukwu has urged Super Eagles’ coach Gernot Rohr to invite players he intends to field for the African Cup of Nations qualifier against South Africa and the World Cup qualifier against Cameroon for next month’s friendly games.

The Super Eagles of Nigeria will be playing friendly ties with Senegal (March 23) and Burkina Faso (March 27) in London during the FIFA international break, and it’s being speculated that the German tactician may hand out fresh call ups to a couple of new players.

But Chukwu believes that the use of same set of players for both the qualifiers and the friendlies will give Rohr the opportunity to detect the weaknesses of the team and also enable the team blend properly before the qualifiers.

The former Super Eagles Coach said using the first choice players for the tune up matches if he’s to get the Eagles’ preparations right ahead of the qualifiers, as he emphatically expressed that “Rohr cannot assemble the Eagles just a few days to the South Africa and Cameroun ties and expect victory.”

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“The reason is that after winning AFCON, the Camerounians have gained enough exposure and blended properly based on the series of games they played at the tournament,’’ Chukwu told the Guardian Nigeria.

“The Eagles did not have such privilege and so the coach has to seek a way of getting the players he desires to use against Cameroun and South Africa to play the two friendlies before the qualifiers.

“I also respect the Cameroun coach for going out of his way to select a group of young boys to play at the AFCON… this is a situation Nigerian coaches have to learn from. it takes commitment and quality tactical discipline from players to win games.

“Nobody is above the country. A player who does not have a good reason like injury or any vital complain should not be recognized in a team. Competing for shirts should be competitive not a selective process,’’ he added.

Nigeria were missing in action at the 2015 and 2017 AFCON finals, and have been grouped with South Africa, Libya and Seychelles in the qualifying series of the 2019 edition. The qualifier will begin in August, when the Eagles will also play Cameroon in the Russia 2018 World Cup qualifiers in Uyo.

 

 

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