The captain of the senior national team of Nigeria William Troost-Ekong says his rise to the top with the team which culminated in winning the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award at the last AFCON was down to always wanting to prove a point, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Ekong made his debut for the senior national team of Nigeria in 2015 against Chad and has since then remained a mainstay in the team. It was however not plain sailing for the 31 year old as he had to endure some setbacks at some stages.
Responding to a question about the criticism he suffered in the hands of the former coach of the team Sunday Oliseh who doubted his suitability for African football, Ekong said it fueled him to work harder in order to prove the former captain wrong.
“They always fueled me to do more. Whenever I have difficult moments, I tend to have Good moments after because it’s something that you know also keeps me thinking at night, makes me evaluate myself.
” But I think now my age, I stopped trying to prove myself to anyone. Sunday Oliseh is a legend. Someone I respect very much. He’s done so much for Nigerian football. I think the time when I spoke about that I was just 24 year old and it was when we just qualified for the World Cup after I was ruled out”, he said at the pre match presser ahead of their last AFCON qualifiers game against Rwanda tomorrow.
” You have your ups and downs and maybe at the time that was the right thing, but I didn’t want to accept it and that’s all part of it, you know. So, I’m very proud of where I am now. It’s been a lot of hard work and hardwork doesn’t stop”.
He went further to say something similar happened with Jose Peseiro just before the AFCON and it pushed him to the level, which earned him the MVP award at the tournament in Cote d’Ivoire.
” I mean something similar happened just before the last AFCON between Jose Peseiro and myself.
We had some differences and in the end we made amends and yeah that performance came out on the back of that. So happy that our coach now doesn’t have to motivate me like that anymore but it’s um, yeah something that, you know, everybody wants to do better and Football is no straight line”, he concluded.
