The decision of Super Eagles coach Jose Peseiro to leave out the duo of Chuba Akpom and Jerome Akor caused lot of debates when the list of players for the world cup qualifiers was made public.
Peseiro called up 23 players but left out the duo in preference for players who don’t have the same level of numbers that the duo are taking this season for their respective teams in league games.
Akpom has scored four goals in his last three games for Dutch giants Ajax as they continue to recover from what is their worst ever start to a season in their history. He only joined the team in the summer from English Championship side Middlesbrough.
Akor who also moved to Ligue 1 side Montpellier in the summer from Norwegian side Lillestrom has taken the league by storm with seven goals in his first eleven games, only Kylian Mbappe has more goals than him in the league.
They were however not in the list of players called up by Peseiro for the games against Lesotho and Zimbabwe respectively in the 2026 world cup qualifiers, a development which we gathered is based on the policy of the Portuguese coach on new players in his team.
OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal that the coach has a policy of not calling more than one new player in his squad and even when he calls more than one, he will only play one. The policy we gathered is his way of trying to build the team with some players as the core of his team.
He believes calling lots of new players will obstruct the project of building a team of players who are used to his ideas style of play and what is demanded of them both on and off the pitch.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
