IN the wake of the renewed club versus country row and its effects on the Super Eagles squad for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, an ex-international has opened up about his own experience.
Two key attackers of the Nigerian national team, Victor Osimhen and Emmanuel Dennis, have had to be dropped from the Super Eagles AFCON squad due to pressure from their clubs, Napoli and Watford.
While Napoli are insisting Osimhen is not yet fully recovered from facial injuries despite the striker’s contrary claim, Watford are clinging on to a clerical error (they claim they received notification for Dennis’ invitation late) to hold on to in-form Dennis.
Peeved by the situation, former Super Eagles midfielder John Ogu revealed on Saturday how he was advised by his club coach to feign injury in order to avoid representing his fatherland.
“I’m not even surprised at the situation of them foreign managers or clubs not wanting their players to go represent their country in tournaments,” Ogu wrote in the first of a series of New Year’s Day tweets.
“One certain manager in Portugal asked I tell the coach of Eagles then that I was injured so as not to go for a friendly game.
“After I left, went back to the club, he stopped playing me. And this was prior to the World Cup coming that year. I made mention of it here and many out here said I was lying and so on. Una don see how them be now?”
Ogu was obviously referring to Academica de Coimbra, the Portuguese club he played for between 2012 and 2014.
The coach then was Sergio Conceicao, the former Portugal winger who is currently the manager of Porto, incidentally the present club of Nigeria international defender Zaidu Sanusi.
Ogu, 33, linked his refusal to heed Conceicao’s advice to his being excluded from the Super Eagles squad to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
“I missed out at that World Cup list. The evil part of it was when the list came out and he found out I wasn’t invited, man walked up to me and asked I call the manager to list me and that if he wants, he can start me in the last game in the league.
“I was shocked how evil one can be,” Ogu added, while lamenting the disregard with which African football is being treated by the global powers that be.
He wrote: “The disrespect to Africans and its football tournaments. They don’t rate any of them at all. We have seen so many tournaments FIFA and UEFA already introduced in World football but when it comes to Africa and Africans, it’s always a different case.”
Ogu made 26 appearances for the Super Eagles, scoring one official goal.
The goal came in a friendly against Mexico in June 2013, which falls within the period of his revelation.
His other Super Eagles goal, in a 1-1 World Cup qualifier draw against Algeria in 2017, does not count because the game was eventually awarded as a 3-0 defeat over Nigeria’s use of ineligible Shehu Abdullahi.
Ogu’s last appearance for the Super Eagles came in the shock 2-0 defeat to Madagascar in the 2019 AFCON, where Nigeria finished in third place.
