10th May 2024
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will release the names of players for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers against South Africa and Benin Republic late next week, a top official of the federation has said.
Nigeria will host South Africa early on June 7 and travel to Cote d’Ivoire to face Benin Republic a few days later.
The NFF official, who pleaded anonymity, said George had submitted to the federation, the list of players he wanted for the matches, adding that the federation was working with the coach to prepare grounds for an early arrival of the invited players.
“We have less than three weeks to the match against South Africa and everything is being done to ensure we win these two games to get back to reckoning in the race to the 2026 World Cup.
“We will start reaching out to the players next week to impress on them the need to arrive early for quality preparation for the matches,” he said.
It was learnt that among the listed players is Super Eagles’ Captain, William Troost-Ekong, who is said to have recovered fully from the injury he copped at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.
Ekong, who just started training with his Greek club, was not part of the recent friendly games against Ghana and Mali in Morocco.
He also disclosed that George had submitted the names of the coaches he wanted to work with to the NFF, adding, “Hopefully, everything will be ratified on time so that the coaches will get down to work.”
The source said that George had submitted a list of four assistant coaches to the NFF, including the current Super Eagles’ goalkeepers’ trainer, Abideen Baruwa, who will remain in the same position.
“In the proposed assistants list are a physical trainer, a video analyst and an assistant coach. The NFF will reveal the identities of the coaches when everything is sorted out,” he said.
Nigeria, who drew with Lesotho and Zimbabwe in its opening games, is third in Group C of the 2026 World Cup African qualifying series with two points, while Rwanda (four points) and South Africa (three Points) are first and second respectively.
