The decision of the head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Austine Eguavoen to leave out West Brom striker Josh Maja from his squad for the upcoming AFCON qualifiers has been revealed to OwnGoalNigeria.com.
Maja is currently the second highest goal scorer in the English Championship with nine goals from 15 games. Only Borja Sainz of Norwich City has scored more goals than the 25 year old, who was largely expected to be named in the Super Eagles squad for the upcoming AFCON qualifiers games against Benin Republic and Rwanda respectively.
However we can exclusively reveal that he turned down the option of adding to his one cap picked up for Nigeria in 2019 in the 2-2 draw against Ukraine in an international friendly game, when he was contacted by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
He asked to be left out of the team for a while after making a full recovery from the injury that made him miss almost an entire season, he feels he isn’t fully ready for more commitment but he is opened to returning to the team in the nearest future.
There is every likelihood that he will be part of the squad for any test game before the resumption of the world cup qualifiers in March 2025, if he maintains his current run of form in front of goal.
