Captain William Ekong, Atalanta of Italy’s Ademola Lookman, effervescent winger Moses Simon, reigning Africa Player of the Year Victor Osimhen and 19 other players will seek for six points against Benin Republic and Rwanda in the closing rounds of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign this month.
Coach Augustine Eguavoen has also called goalkeepers Stanley Nwabali and Maduka Okoye, defenders Calvin Bassey and Bright Osayi-Samuel, as well as midfielders Frank Onyeka, Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Alhassan Yusuf Abdullahi, and forwards Kelechi Iheanacho, Victor Boniface and Samuel Chukwueze.
Home-based defender Victor Collins will join up with the group for the first time, and there is a return for gangling forward Sadiq Umar, who plays for Real Sociedad in Spain.
Defenders Olaoluwa Aina and Bruno Onyemaechi are also listed, while France-based defender Gabriel Osho will hope to play his first competitive game for fatherland, after his inability to honour a first call-up in the summer due to injury.
The Super Eagles will fly directly to Abidjan on 11 November, for the confrontation with the Cheetahs of Benin Republic at the Stade Felix-Houphouet-Boigny on Thursday, 14th November, before traveling down to Uyo for the final qualifying game against the Amavubi of Rwanda at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium on Monday, 18th November.
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Currently top of their Group D, the Super Eagles will be certain of a place in the final tournament if they get a point against the Cheetahs, which will take then to 11 points, and with only final-day opponents Rwanda capable of catching up with them on points. However, with a current tally of seven goals for and none against (following the CAF Disciplinary Board’s award of three points and three goals for the botched Matchday 4 encounter against Libya), the Super Eagles stand head and shoulders above the Amavubi, who have one-goal deficit and five points in their favour going into the final two matchdays.
FULL LIST
Goalkeepers: Stanley Nwabali (Chippa United, South Africa); Maduka Okoye (Udinese FC, Italy); Amas Obasogie (Fasil Kenema SC, Ethiopia)
Defenders: William Ekong (Al-Kholood FC, Saudi Arabia); Bright Osayi-Samuel (Fenerbahce SK, Turkey); Bruno Onyemaechi (Boavista FC, Portugal); Gabriel Osho (AJ Auxerre, France); Calvin Bassey (Fulham FC, England); Olaoluwa Aina (Nottingham Forest, England); Victor Collins (Nasarawa United)
Midfielders: Wilfred Ndidi (Leicester City, England); Raphael Onyedika (Club Brugge, Belgium); Alhassan Yusuf Abdullahi (New England Revolution, USA); Fisayo Dele-Bashiru (Lazio FC. Italy); Frank Onyeka (Augsburg FC, Germany); Alex Iwobi (Fulham FC, England)
Forwards: Samuel Chukwueze (AC Milan, Italy); Victor Osimhen (Galatasaray FC, Turkey); Ademola Lookman (Atalanta FC, Italy); Kelechi Iheanacho (Sevilla FC, Spain); Victor Boniface (Bayer Leverkusen, Germany); Moses Simon (FC Nantes, France); Sadiq Umar (Real Sociedad, Spain)
21 Comments
Good list, best of luck
Where is EJUKE. We need creative player to move the ball forward except injury induced.
Ejuke is injured and out for the year..
It’s a pity that we are still experimenting with the caliber of attackers who have refused to take their chances whenever Osihmen is not 100% fit. This anomaly cost us the world cup ticket , It seems Eagles Coaches haven’t learnt anything. We have some must win World cup matches coming up after the AFCCON qualifiers so it will make sense to use the 2 remaining matches to test players like Josh Maja, Arokodare, Akor , Akpan et al . We have seen all these attackers invited . Osihmen is the only dependable goal scorer so if he gets injured who are we to look up to. Well won’t raise this issue again . A word is enough for the wise. Na sit don look I go dey look for world cup qualifiers
Gbam! You don talk am finish. Maja is far better than Boniface.
God bless you @Four four two. See, as long as Eguavoen is still in charge of the Super Eagles, Nigerians should forget about our best players.
Eguavoen doesn’t have our interest in mind. If he does, Arokodare and Dessers should have been included on this squad kę.
Boniface is not ready for the Super Eagles yet, but still, Eguavoen is forcing him on us.
Umar Sodiq is not better than Dessers; still, he made the list.
This is the reason why I wanted Siasia to replace Eguavoen. Eguavoen would rather prefer brown envelopes to dignity.
I pray Eguavoen should not be in charge when Nigeria kicks up their World Cup campaign. Otherwise, he will sink the Super Eagles with the type of players he relies on.
This is the best time to give Dessers, Akpom, and Maja a chance to prove their worth but if you know you. This is why Nigeria has been struggling as a nation. Hmmm. It is well. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
0mo9ja
pls clear road and lets pipo see road abeg. mscheewt desserts desserts desserts ahah wetin na? dem send you come? mumu
so in youre small mind eh, desser is the raeson why nigreain as been struggling as a nations ko? so including price of fuel and foodstuffs and no light and bad road and kidnapers all is dessers fault kwa goni?
robbish! dessert is the worst footballer ever to repersented nigreains take it from me an am not even nigreain but hi loves it.
This list is poor. Jordan Torunariga and Kevin Akpoguma are missing. Cyriel Dessers is far better than Sadiq Umar. Tom Dele-Bashiru is playing regularly. What is bench warming Fisayo Dele Bashiru doing there? This Collins guy is worst.
I’m still waiting for the integration of Sodiq Ismail and Ben Fredricks into the SE.
Eguavoen is going for all 6 points with a full-strength and tested squad. He needs the maximum points to convince fans and the NFF to get the job on a permanent basis and terminate the search for a foreign coach.
He knows that if he wins home and away, the call for a foreign TA will slowly die off. He’ll probably only experiment with a friendly.
“He knows that if he wins home and away, the call for a foreign TA will slowly die off. He’ll probably only experiment with a friendly.”
Never! Never! Never! WC qualifiers are a different kettle of fish entirely. A coach who still is reliant on his so-called core players that put us in the messy position we are in? He has shown he is not man enough to ring the changes or blood new talent.
6 must win matches. We cannot and will not and shall not gamble with a “comfort zone” home based coach who will never outfox those countries with tacticians looking to make name for themselves.
Libya almost succeeded in frustrating Eagles in Uyo. What tactics will unlock current leaders who’d lock up shop at their home grounds than lose to us in away matches.
You think we are still in “express yourselves” football abi?
Eguavoen does not have any balls to be decisive in his squad list and with this list, he just lost an opportunity to let us into his “future” plans.
The next set of matches are in March next year (world cup qualifiers). That means, these are his core players.
No to him! If poorer countries have foreign managers, why not us?
We should stop joking around now. Penny wise, pound foolish.
No one wants to see Victor Boniface here. l called him ‘Boniyeye’ for a reason. He is no good playing for the Nation. Not even one goal in 9 for Nigeria.
Boniface problem is believing he has arrived probably thinking he is a super star then any player that’s relevant on social media is bound to be an average player. Take Lookman for example hardly would you see him on any media.
Our players need to be focused which is the reason why Nigeria born players are not as sound or improving as foreign born players
Shameful Call ups list by Eguavoen. World Cup qualifiers is around the corner and our achilles heels , goal scoring and creating goals, we still have no solution for them. We have for years tried using Iwobi, yes he has done some work in the Creative midfield position but I think it is time to add Akpom or Christantus to that mix, let’s see what they can add.
I have noticed that if Victor Osimhen has injury and can’t come for National team duty, we usually struggle to score goals and having strikers scoring for fun in Europe, why can’t we try Arokodare, Maja and Dessers?
The Defense look solid with the invitation Of Gabriel Osho, but Akpoguma has also been doing well and we should learn how to reward hardworking.
So This Collins guy should have been replaced by Akpoguma, since Ola Aina can also play at left back, Sadiq should have been replaced by Arokodare, Alessandro replaced by Akpom, but we are in Nigeria and the regions have to be represented in the team..let’s see how it goes
I like the list.
Very embarrassing list again.
Sodiq Umar invitation says it all again. I pity this country. We need just one point and we are almost done with afcon qualifier so we can’t give arokodare and Chrisantus a chance. What about maja. And is Umar sodiq better than dessers in Europe this season.
We see this type of things all the time.
And they do it and push it on Nigerians telling us we can’t do anything. So sad.
I just pity these new players that are doing their best in Europe like
Arokodare
Maja
Akpom
Chrisantus
Dessers
How I wished they can just play for another country.
Very very poor list i expect something better from our coach
That is the problem I have with Nigeria coach they are one side coach all we need is one point out of 6 to qualify I don’t there is any window for friendly matches to test players before our World Cup qualifiers this is time to text players and see what dey can add to the team .
Looking at that list
Goalkeeper position
I think that first two place are taking by our best but think that third option should us go to the best goalkeeper in the Nigeria league in other to gain experience but the coach will us invite there own player just Nigeria coach thing
Defending
I think I m okay with that
And midfield too
Just player like Tom should get a looking later
I think is injured now
Striker
This is where the problem is the coach should come and tell us why players like kelechi and sodik make the team
When they are struggle to make an impact in their club but there are always invited to the national team why
When we have players whom are in inform like
Tolu , Maja , dessser , Akpom to name a few
So Eguavoen cannot guarantee 1 point from 6 with a fully homebased sqaud…?
We are about to face Benin (on a neutral ground) and Rwanda (at home), two teams with “largely” homebased players and a couple of low rate teams abroad, yet ndi homebased players are as good as their foreign based counterparts cannot line up the homebased team who have already been in camp for matches which are mere formalities….LMAOoo.
This the biggest indictment yet of home based players.
It is even more of an irony coming at a time when the technical director whom I will call the GO of Nigerian football and 2 of the most recent regular league champions are the the coaches of the Super eagles.
All the homebased yuen yuen yuen folks should henceforth forever hold their peace. It is now glaring they’re all about using them a deadweights in the main team to gain market exposure and nothing more. Absolute zero confidence in their actual abilities.
If they cannot guarantee at least 1 draw from 2 games against the likes of Benin and Rwanda after 3 weeks camping, they should forever keep their mouths shut.
The reason y we were complaining is that because we have many stars scattered abroad what of so many countries both in Africa, Europe, Asia, North American, East Europe South American that they don’t have what we paraded, we should be thankful for the blessings of God, many good coaches also failed to qualified their countries to proper competition. Let’s support equavon.
Gibberish
Between now and March’s World Cup qualifiers, some of Eguavoen’s foot-soldiers should starting firing on all cylinders in club football. Although he can afford to tag dubious-weights along to these afcon qualifier rumpus, sharp-as-nails players are a must to resurrect our world cup hopes.
Sadiq Umar and Kelechi Iheanacho have providence to thank for their invitations this time around. Objectively, they haven’t done near enough to be called upon. Between them, they have 0 goals and 0 assists in 24 league games in Spain this season having made match day squads – no greater indication of their struggles need be sought.
Although Fisayo Dele-Bashiru is a firm fan-favourite,being rooted to the bench in 7 out of his last league matches doesn’t bode well in the long run.
For these games against Benin and Rwanda, the list is good enough. But, for next year’s assignments, Eguavoen will do well to eschew freeloaders. I do not mean to be harsh on these wonderful players but being starved of game-time in club football and not doing the business in front of goal for our strikers are likely to affect their sharpness for national team assignments.
And sharpness is non-negotiable should we habour realistic ambitions to turning around our fortunes in crucial world cup qualfiers.