Musa to start for Super Eagles this evening

by Staff Reporter

Tuesday Jun 08, 2021. 13:00

Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr has confirmed that Ahmed Musa will return to the starting line-up for this evening’s international friendly against Cameroon.

The Super Eagles and the Indomitable Lions will cross swords again at the Stadion Wiener Neustadt in Austria, with the latter having claimed a 1-0 win last Friday thanks to Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s first-half strike.

Musa, who came on as a substitute midway through the second half in the first game, will be present in the starting XI today, as will Francis Uzoho and Valentine Ozornwafor.

Rohr has confirmed those changes and insists that experimenting and gathering data on the players is more important than the results, with Nigeria set to open the group stage of their 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign with matches against Liberia and Cape Verde in September.

“Observations are positive because some of the players who arrived from Nigeria were not so fit for the first game. They have now recovered well, and we should be better physically,” Rohr is quoted by Completesports.

“There will be some changes in the team, Francis Uzoho will be in goal, [Ahmed] Musa will start because he is fit, we lost Troost-Ekong so Valentine [Ozornwafor] will come in for the first time.

“These matches are made to test some players who have not played so much and also to have new organisation maybe try something different and we want to win it also because we have never won in Austria after four games.”

The Super Eagles boss added, “The most important thing is not the result, the most important is to progress to learn to work,” he continued.

“We have 16 players who could not come, five central defenders, two defensive midfielders [Joe] Aribo, [Frank] Onyeka and all the strikers could not come, the wingers, [Samuel] Kalu, Henry [Onyekuru], [Victor] Osimhen, Simy [Nwankwo] and [Umar] Sadiq also because of the play-offs.

“It is a different camping but we have some experience now, we are interested in the new players and what they can do in this match against Cameroon.”

The Super Eagles are also scheduled to face Mexico in a friendly in Los Angeles early next month.