Captain of the senior national team of Nigeria William Troost-Ekong has explained the key point in his decision to pursue a senior international career with Nigeria despite spending time with the youth teams of the Netherlands, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Born to parents of Nigerian descent in the Netherlands, the 31 year old was eligible for both nations and the Dutch stole a march on Nigeria by having him in their training camp and even played for their U19 and U20 in friendly games, before making the decision to represent Nigeria.
Speaking during The Sports Afterparty Podcast, Ekong explained how a phone call from the former coach of the senior national team Stephen Keshi swayed his decision to pursue an international career with Nigeria, instead of waiting to progress through the ranks with the Netherlands.
“I had the decision quite early in my career. I was 20 at the time, I just finished my breakthrough season in the Netherlands, first year of playing probably 30 plus games (22 games, ed) in the Eredivisie, which is the highest league in the Netherlands.
“All of a sudden I got a phone call from Stephen Keshi, who was the coach at the time, ex-captain and ex-player, so I was quite blown away he called me before then right at the start of the season, I had played for the Dutch U19 and U20 squads, but there was no real perspective yet for the first team.
He went further to explain why someone like Michael Olise of Bayern Munich, who was called up to the Super Eagles squad by former coach Gernot Rohr picked playing for France ahead of Nigeria and Algeria.
“When I had that call, it wasn’t necessarily maybe in the same boat when you talk about Olise from Bayern Munich for example when he chose to play for France and he could have played for Nigeria, Algeria, England. He had all those options there on the table for him.
“This was the only tangible option that I had. The choice was between trying to progress and later in my career maybe have a chance to play for the Netherlands or have a chance now to play for the Super Eagles who were kind of going through a transition stage where a lot of their defenders that time were a little bit older, so I knew that they wanted to make some changes there.
“I said yes very quickly because I thought if I can have a chance to become an international at 21 years old I probably have a good chance of making a career after if I do well.”
