Injury crisis! 2013 AFCON winner slams Super Eagles handlers for squad blunder
2013 AFCON winner Brown Ideye has slammed Super Eagles of Nigeria handlers for what he considers a blunder amidst injury crisis to the teams strikers.
The 35-year-old Nigerian striker who currently plays for Kuwaiti side Al-Yarmouk SC, did not mince his words when expressing his dismay over the recent developments surrounding the Super Eagles.
Ahead of their 2023 AFCON opener vs Equatorial Guinea on Sunday, January 14, Nigeria is left with only one center-forward due to injuries sustained by Victor Boniface and Sadiq Umar.
Though both players have been replaced on the list, but the replacements will not be available for the game on Sunday.
The trigger for his recent criticism was the withdrawal of Sadiq Umar from the AFCON 2023 tournament on Friday, January 14, 2024.
Ideye took to his social media handle to publicly voice his displeasure.
A particularly contentious point for Ideye is Peseiro’s decision to submit a 25-man squad, falling short of the maximum 27 allowed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Ideye in his submission argued that CAF provides teams the flexibility to name a larger squad to account for unforeseen circumstances like injuries.
“We’re just unlucky that we have most of our key players injured. That’s one reason CAF asks teams to submit 27 names because they know things like this can happen. But what did we do? We went with 25; we literally shot ourselves in the foot,” Ideye wrote.
Nigeria will welcome three forwards before their second group game, with Leicester City’s Kelechi Iheanacho, OGC Nice forward Terem Moffi and Trabzonspor’s Paul Onuachu who is the latest invitee.
