The signing of Victor Osimhen by Turkish side Galatasaray has been the major talking point in the country after the completion of his loan agreement from Serie A side Napoli, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Osimhen was signed on a season long loan deal as cover for top striker Mauro Icardi who is expected to miss a large chunk of the season following an injury picked up.

Icardi who has emerged as the talisman of the team since his move from Inter Milan stayed silent all through the process of the signing and unveiling of the Nigerian, who left Napoli in similar circumstances like when he left fellow Italian side.

“The lion dominates in silence, while dogs bark to attract attention,” wrote the Argentinean striker, using a picture of his face depicted as one of a lion”, he posted on Instagram.

His post has led to debate in the media in Turkey on his happiness over the signing of the reigning Africa player of the year, who is set to replace him as the poster boy of the team.

The late arrival of Victor Osimhen to the camp of the senior national team of Nigeria for their upcoming AFCON qualifiers games against Benin Republic and Rwanda respectively completed the number of players in the team’s camp to 23, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Osimhen’s arrival was delayed due to his late loan move to Galatasaray from Napoli. It means he missed three of their sessions in the build up to the game against Benin Republic on Saturday in Uyo.

The drama surrounding his exit from Napoli made head coach of the team to keep him away from all of their pre season games, and all their competitive games of the season so far both in the Serie A and cup games.

He is in the camp of the team without a minute of either test games or competitive games for the past three months, and that has led to questions on if the 25 year old should retain his spot as the first choice striker of the team by starting on Saturday.

” It isn’t ideal to start Osimhen because of his match fitness level. He hasn’t played any test game or competitive games for a while, so you can throw him into the starting lineup like that at least for the game against Benin Republic”, Efe Ambrose a member of the 2013 AFCON winning team told OwnGoalNigeria.com.

” Osimhen is needed in the team but when he is fully fit. He can be a substitute in the second half of the game but it’s not my decision or yours to make. We can only voice our opinion and let the coaches do their job as appropriate”.

Head coach of the senior national team of Rwanda Frank Torsten Spittler says his team are hopeful of beating the senior national team of Nigeria in their second AFCON 2025 qualifiers game after starting off the series with a 1-1 draw away to Libya, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Rwanda will head into the game with confidence that they are playing at home and have had six days rest, unlike Nigeria who will only have a three days break after their first game against Benin Republic before the trip to Kigali.

The coach heaped praises on his players for the away result saying it has put them in a very good mood for the visit of the Super Eagles, who are traditionally one of the strongest team in Africa but currently trail Rwanda by four points in the world cup qualifiers.

“We always score one goal, and it brings us pressure throughout the 90 minutes. Our team is, however, taking shape and we can get better. We know our next game against Nigeria won’t be easy, but we hope to make the best out of our home advantage. Now every point count and this draw with Libya brings us more confidence,” Spittler said after the 1-1 draw in Libya.

Spittler also said Jojea Kwizera who was a substitute in Wednesday’s draw due to fatigue is expected to be back in the starting lineup after getting a well deserved rest.

“Jojea came from afar, he had only one training session with us. I knew it would be difficult for him because of the conditions but he tried. He is a good player and, as he can now spend few days of training preparing for Nigeria, he will be essential for us,” he added.

Interim head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Austine Eguavoen will make five changes to the Super Eagles lineup that lost 1-2 to Benin Republic three months ago , when both teams meet in the AFCON qualifiers tomorrow, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.

The Super Eagles will be looking to reassert their dominance over their West African neighbors after suffering a first ever defeat last time out in the world cup qualifiers.

Super Eagles have not had the best of build up to the game with the entire issue of a replacement for departed coach Finidi George ending in a dramatic way , after the coach announced as his replacement made a u-turn on the agreement in principle following breakdown over tax payments.

Eguavoen the technical director of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) was drafted in for the games against Benin Republic and Rwanda on the 7th and 10th of September respectively.

His first task in Uyo will see him try to erase the memories of the last time he handled the team in the world cup qualifiers playoff, where they got beaten by Ghana and missed out on a ticket to the world cup.

We can exclusively reveal that from the team which Benin defeated under Finidi George, Eguavoen will make five changes with two due to the unavailability of the players.

The duo of Terem Moffi and Bright Osayi-Samuel are unavailable leaving Victor Boniface and Ola Aina as the favourite to take their spot in the team that started the last game.

Benjamin Tanimu will also make way for William Troost-Ekong who will partner Semi Ajayi in defence, with Calvin Bassey dropping to the left back spot. However Stanley Nwabali will continue in goal despite Maduka Okoye’s fine form for Udinese in the build up to the game.

Samuel Chukwueze will also be relegated to the bench with Moses Simon taking his spot on the right side of attack. Frank Onyeka will come in for goal scorer Raphael Onyedika in the midfield.

Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman

The failed attempt by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to hire German coach Bruno Labbadia as the coach of the senior national team of Nigeria ahead of their qualifiers have been termed as a blessing in disguise, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Labbadia was announced by the NFF as the new coach of the senior national team of Nigeria, but a few days after the announcement talks broke down following a disagreement over the payment of his taxes.

It left the NFF with no choice but to appoint the technical director of the football house Austine Eguavoen as interim coach for the AFCON qualifiers games against Benin Republic and Rwanda on the 7th and 10th of September respectively.

Eguavoen’s appointment has been termed as a blessing in disguise by one of the stars of the team at the last AFCON Moses Simon, while looking ahead of Saturday’s game against Benin Republic in Uyo.

” The mood is already up because coach Eguavoen already has knowledge of all of the players. He knows the role everybody has to play and he gives confident to the players, but we don’t the foreign coach (Labbadia), we don’t know his tactics , we don’t how it will work because you could have the best player sitting on the bench but I think with Eguavoen he knows everything about us”, Simon told the official channel of the NFF while speaking on the game and the botched attempt to hire Labbadia.

” He ( Eguavoen) knows what is going on in the nation and also in the team because he wasn’t out of the team when he wasn’t the coach anymore. He works with the NFF so he is always within the team, and this is our job and we know what it takes.

” Of course we lost against them 2-1 and this time around we don’t want to lose or draw against them . I think we always beat them and the guys know what they have to do to win”.

Legendary Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro has revealed the main reason why he snubbed the opportunity to be the new coach of the senior national team of Nigeria, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Like we exclusively reported after the announcement on Bruno Labbadia as the new coach of the team, Cannavaro was on a revised shortlist of four which includes Aitor Karanka and. Gustavo Poyet.

Labbadia however made a u-turn on the offer following a disagreement on payment of his tax during talks , forcing the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) into appointing technical director of the body Austine Eguavoen as interim coach for this weekend’s AFCON qualifiers game against Benin Republic in Uyo.

Speaking on his next career move as a coach after his last job as coach of Serie A side Udinese, Cannavaro revealed he had offers including from Nigeria, but wants to bid his time until the end of ten year with the hope that a Serie A or any team in Europe will take a chance on him.

“I had offers from Nigeria [national team] and Iranian clubs, but I want to wait for Serie A and European clubs until December. After that, I may start travelling again.”

Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman

Coach of Benin Republic Gernot Rohr have been dealt a huge blow in his preparations for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers game against Nigeria at the Godswill Akpabio stadium in Uyo, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Rohr who was in charge of the Super Eagles for a period of almost seven years has been busy putting his players through the demands of the games against Nigeria at their training camp in Cote d’Ivoire.

However his plans of adding more quality to his team suffered a huge setback when PSG defender Colin Dagba once again declined the chance to switch allegiance, and play for the West African country.

Dagba was born in France and his parents are French and Beninese making him eligible for both countries, but after representing France at U21 level in 2021 he hasn’t been able to make the step up to the senior team promoting Benin Republic to try their chance.

Speaking after revealing his squad the game against Nigeria, Rohr revealed that once again the 25 year old who is back at PSG after two consecutive loan spells rejected his approach but he will continue trying.

“It’s like when you’re picking up a girl. The more you want to go for it, maybe the less she’ll want to. So, that’s the situation we’re in. Trust us and give him (Dagba) time to come by himself.

Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman

The appointment of Austine Eguavoen as the interim coach of the senior national team of Nigeria has drawn contrasting reactions from two influential figures in the history of Nigerian football, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

They both aired their opinion through the online version of Nigeria’s print outfit the Nation with James Peter, a former technical director of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) the first to give his opinion.

He criticized the appointment on the basis of Eguavoen’s failure to deliver on the separate occasions he has been given the chance to be in charge of the team , citing the most recent one which was the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

“We are walking on a tight rope and I don’t think Eguavoen has the capacity; and at this stage, it’s a hopeless situation,” the septuagenarian said on a radio programme via The Nations.

“We have wasted so much time talking back and forth about the coaches they (NFF) wanted to take and this (appointment of Eguavoen) doesn’t make anyone look responsible at all because what Eguavoen will do would be nothing to write home about.”

Gernot Rohr who was in charge of the Super Eagles for a period of almost seven years and worked with Eguavoen for around two years was however of a different opinion. He termed the appointment as positive saying it puts the Super Eagles in a good position against his team in this weekend’s AFCON 2025 qualifiers.

On Eguavoen’s failure to steer the Super Eagles to the world cup in Qatar shortly after replacing him as coach, Rohr said he believe the coach must have learnt a thing or two about why the team failed to go past Ghana in the playoffs.

“I think Eguavoen knows them (the Super Eagles) better than a new coach,” Rohr, who has managed other Africa’s national teams including Niger, Burkina Faso and Gabon, told NationSports.

“He surely must have learned from the two eliminations (for Qatar 2022 and AFCON 2021) and, perhaps, his team could be more dangerous to deal with,” the 71-year-old former Bordeaux trainer, who led The Cheetahs to their historic first official victory over Nigeria last June in Abidjan, noted.

A member of the Super Eagles squad to the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations has pointed out the main difference in the present team and their team that conquered the African continent 11 years ago, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.

Nigeria will return to action this weekend with the AFCON qualifiers game against Benin Republic in Uyo on Saturday followed quickly by the second game in the same series against Rwanda away in Kigali three days later.

Ahead of the game, the team has been compared to the 2013 set by the top striker of the Stephen Keshi led team in Brown Ideye , who says the present team has more talented players than they did back then but lack the heart to fight unlike theirs.

“Yes. This current team has more talented players on paper than our team in 2013 but, do not have the heart we had”, he said in a chat made available to us by SportsBoom.

Explaining further he stated: “If you check our lineup back then, from the goalkeeper to Emenike, apart from Victor Moses, Mikel Obi, both at Chelsea and Vincent Enyeama at Lille, there were no well-known stars in the side playing consistently for their clubs back then.

“Even some were club less or playing in the Nigerian Topflight.

“Onazi was in Lazio but, wasn’t a starter”

“Unlike what they have now, you have Ademola Lookman (Atalanta), Victor Osimhen, for Napoli, Iwobi, Bassey (Fulham), Ajayi, Ola Aina, even Zaidu Sanusi (Porto) apart from the goalkeeper, almost all the players are all in the elite league, with most in the EPL.

“The team was totally different from this team.”

He also spoke about another key aspect of the AFCON 2013 winning team of the Super Eagles, which is discipline and support among the players, something he feels is missing in this present team.

“We supported one another; we left whatever dispute we had on the field there and moved on off it after the game.”

“We talked to one another, go to each other’s rooms, we encouraged ourselves and never criticized ourselves. Discipline in camp was paramount as everyone tried to stay in line.”

“If he said bedtime was 8 pm and there was to be no noise afterwards, that was how it was going to be.”

“For me, I feel the discipline in the team gave us the trophy”.

18-year-old Nigerian prodigy, Taiye Abdulateef, has joined Greek giants Olympiacos from Unicorns Football Academy, Ilorin, on a 4-year contract.

Victor Awoniyi, CEO of the academy, disclosed this on Thursday and confirmed that the attacker has joined the Under 19 squad of the reigning European Conference League champions.

Awoniyi explained that the young forward, highly regarded for his pace, skill, and goal-scoring ability, has begun life in Greece on a positive note.

In his first start for the Olympiacos U19 team, Taiye made an impressive debut, scoring a goal and providing two assists in a dominant win.

His outstanding performance has already generated excitement among fans and coaches alike, raising expectations of a rapid promotion to the first team in the future.

Awoniyi noted that Taiye’s move to Olympiacos is a significant step in his development, providing him with top-level training and competition.

This move is expected to further enhance his skills and prepare him for a successful professional career.