The president of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) Ibrahim Gusau, minimizes the impact that the absence of Wilfred Ndidi may have on the Super Eagles at AFCON 2023.
Ndidi will not be among the 25 Nigerians at AFCON 2023 in Ivory Coast. He is injured and will have to be absent for a long time, according to his coach at Leicester who revealed the verdict this Friday.
With the Foxes this season, the midfielder is very consistent, playing 24 matches for 4 goals and 6 assists, in all competitions.
“I don’t have any tension because I know we played a lot of matches without Ndidi and we won a lot of matches without Ndidi.
We played a lot of matches with Ndidi and lost unexpectedly, so it’s not about Ndidi, it’s about the Nigeria national team,” the NFF president told Totorinews.
In Nigeria’s last ten matches without Ndidi, the Super Eagles have won three, drawn four and lost three.
While some football observers and fans fear the void that Ndidi will leave in the Nigerian team, Gusau does not agree.
“The young boy who has been called up now, Yusuf (Alhassan Yusuf midfielder Royal Antwerp), is also doing wonderfully with his team.
When they played against Barcelona, you can see the performance they gave in the victory against Barcelona in the Champions League.
He is also a young boy, perhaps this is the opportunity for him to perform a miracle,” Gusau continued.
“Don’t forget that not everyone had confidence in Mba (Sunday Mba who scored the goal of the 1-0 victory in the final against Burkina Faso) when we went to AFCON in 2013 and that in Ultimately, Mba was one of the players who performed a miracle.
Nobody knows what Yusuf will be in the team, so it is not about Ndidi, but the Super Eagles,” concluded the NFF president.
At AFCON 2023, the Super Eagles team is in Group A alongside the host country (Ivory Coast), Equatorial Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.
